Day 6 - Florence

April 26, 2025

Day 6 - Florence

We started our day with breakfast on the rooftop patio of our hotel, which has a very nice view of the Duomo, our first stop for the day. The sun is into our eyes, so pictures aren't that great. But it's a lovely view.

The Florence Duomo, or Cathedral is a "complex". I say complex because there are multiple parts to the cathedral. Our tour of the complex includes the Baptistry, built in the 1100’s, a climb up Brunelleschi's famous dome, and the Duomo museum.

The Baptistry is a separate building which was common in early churches. The Florence Baptistry is renown for its frescos, which we couldn't see. Like many things in historical buildings over the world, including Florence, restoration work is needed on artifacts, which was the case here. The main ceiling was covered as work was being done on it. There was one area of restored frescos, which was quite beautiful. The other interesting thing about the Baptistry is that it is the resting place of the anti-pope John XXIII. Apparently, he declared himself the pope at some point, hence the "anti-pope" title. Not sure about his overall story, so will have to look it up.

What ceiling looks like.

This is a canvas during restoration.

The anti-pope

Next up was the climb up the famous Florence Duomo Dome built by Brunelleschi. From the top, you can get a good 360-degree view of Florence. The dome is quite the feet of engineering, which is my first thought. Then it is quite beautiful, my second thought. It's 400 plus stairs up between the dome shells. Yes, there are actually two domes, one inside the other. The pair are used to help support each other, since the dome is free standing. No buttresses to support it. I won't go into all the engineering details, so I highly recommend looking at the many online resources that talk about its design and construction.

Climbing up!

Herringbone pattern for

ease of construction and strength

Our hotel rooftop patio

After the walk up and down from the dome, we headed over to the Duomo Museum. Much of the original busts and sculptures on the outside facade of the church have been removed and are now kept in the Duomo Museum, with replicas replacing the originals on the actual building. It was fun to be able to see the sculptures up close, especially the ones that were high up on the original building.

Charity, Hope and Faith

Michelangelo’s second to last Pieta, unfinished

Symbol for engineering, and a couple of engineers.

10 plaques depicting Psalm 150

Leonardo DaVinci

We then headed over to a street for lunch that was recommended by yesterday's guide. It turns out that about everyone else in Florence also headed there for lunch. Quite the mad house. We did manage to find an out of the way pizza place that looked like it was run by a husband and wife. We enjoyed our pizza on their sidewalk cafe, and we watch the crowds go by.

Our busy day continued with a visit to the Basilica of San Croce. This church is famous for both of its famous burials, as well the art work of the church. People buried there include Galileo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli. We rented an audio tour and walked throughout the church learning about the people and artwork.

Galileo

Michelangelo

Machiavelli

Robes of St Francis of Assisi

St Francis and Pope Francis

Another Last Supper below Christ

sending out his word to the prophets

Flood levels. Worst flood was 1966.

Water level reached the top of this painting

and ruined many works of art.

Finally we ended the day with dinner. One we cooked ourselves! We had signed up for a pasta making class, where we made pasta and then 3 different dishes with it. Tortellini, ravioli, and pappardelle with meat sauce. Our chef, David, was very Italian. Difficult to understand, but a lot of fun. His recipes were all from his grandmother. We had a group of 12 or so around our table and thoroughly enjoyed the evening.