20090511 – Florence

I had another good night’s sleep. This is beginning to be a habit. Someone needs to talk to KD or maybe I should wear earplugs at home. (KD is our dog, if you didn’t know. She likes to jump on the bed in the early morning to get her scratches). The only thing that bothered me during the night was the mosquito buzzing my ear. The problem was resolved when I put in my earplugs.

It was warm enough to have our breakfast on the terrace. It was a typical buffet with juice, some fresh fruit, cereal, croissants, other breads, yogurt, cold cuts, cheese, coffee, etc. Several of us gathered at tables in a corner and ate together.

I mentioned that I was going to the Duomo. Janet Monks from Oakland and GPC joined me. We left at 10:00 walking across the Arno on Ponte alle Grazie, turned left along the river and turned right to go past the Uffizi. Janet had never been to Florence, so I tried to remember some of the things from Rick Steves’ audio tour to point out to her. We saw most of the statues outside the Uffizi. Then we walked through the Piazza Signora after viewing Perseus with Mathusa’s head in his hand and the statue of the Rape of the Sabines. We went up the main walking street and veered left to go the the Piazza di Repubblica. Soon we were at the Duomo.

We walked around the Baptistery to see the bronze doors. Then we entered the Duomo to see the inside. It is not as spectacular as many other Italian cathedrals, but it does have gorgeous inlaid marble floors as well as interesting paintings on the inside of the dome. The lower portion of the dome showed the devil torturing the poor unfortunates while the upper portion showed the fortunate holier-then-thou people.

Once I worked up my nerve, we left the inside and went around the Duomo to the entrance to climb up to the dome. As some of you know, I have problems with closed spaces and heights, so this was a real mind-over-matter situation for me. Having Janet along with me helped a lot as we chatted along the way up the narrow stairways, around the catwalk on the inside of the dome and up the final steep stairs to the top. As we went up, we were between the inside dome and the outside dome. We could sort of visualize how they were constructed.

We go to the top on the outside and walked around taking several photos. I felt so confident that I could get next to the outside railing to get better perspectives for my photos.

After spending about 10 minutes at the top, we started the trip down. The first part of the descent found us passing people coming up. We had to stop several times on the narrow stairs on some turnouts so that the upstream people could get by. The descent took us around a higher catwalk on the inside of the dome. We could look way down and see the sanctuary. We could also look up at the paintings and see them more clearly. We could also see many cracks on the surface.

We kept going down the stairs stopping once to look at some of the original construction equipment. When we left the building, Janet took off for the local bicycle shop while I wandered back to the Piazza di Signorina and found a trattoria where I had a good pasta dish with vegetables in it and panna cota.

After lunch, I walked over to the Officina Profumo – Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella for some supplies. After packing them into my suitcase, my clothes are going to smell a lot better. Then I crossed over the Arno and took a leisurely stroll on back streets to the hotel.

I fussed around the hotel doing minor things like getting my bicycle ready until Happy Hour at 6:00. We went through the usual first-night orientation plus the route wrap for tomorrow. Then it was off to dinner at La Beppa Fiordia for a good family style meal. We started off with two kinds of pasta. Then we had a mixed salad. For a main course we had sliced flank steak and chicken baked under a brick. Finally, we had some really good tiramisu. It was nearing 10:00, so some of us left for the hotel before the coffee was served. It’s just a little too late for me to sit at the dinner table.

Now it’s 10:15 and I am getting ready for bed.