FIRENZE DUOMO

Turns out there are Duomos all over Italy- I guess the idea of a “duomo” is that it is the main cathedral in the town and Florence’s does NOT disappoint. It is the most interesting striped pattern and is made up of three different colors of marble (white, pink and green)- Plus the church is only about two blocks from our hotel. We are staying at HOTEL EUROPA. Interestingly enough, I discovered this hotel from watching one of my favorite reality tv shows, “Little People, Big World”. The Roloffs stayed here last year when they were touring Europe for the tv show (it’s the show about “little people-dwarves”). I noticed it when they were leaving their hotel on the show and I thought if its good enough for them, its good enough for us!

Carol freaked when she saw the elevator (lift) to the second floor. In Europe the first floors are floor “0”- so we are actually on the 2^nd floor even though we’re on the first floor officially. Oh man the elevators in these old hotels in Italy have been SO TINY! Honestly- you can barely fit two people in them- and then when you add luggage (and we only have a carryon each)- you are crammed against the wall and barely are able to get the doors closed. Plus this one is one of those that’s in a cage and you can see the whole thing, cables and all- and you have to close the doors manually and then watch the floor disappear below you as you get pulled up. Needless to say Carol chose to walk up the two floors when we came back tonight J.

This is a shot of us taken in front of the Duomo- and the others are of the church itself. The painted dome is the inside. Its so hard to really capture what these things look like in pictures- but I figured I’d try. Just look at the intricacies of this painting and then realize HOW HIGH up it is from the floor- You just don’t even know how they could even do it.

The tower is known as Giotto’s Campanile and I walked up it. I think it was 404 steps or so. Carol opted to wait on the ground in the shade. Actually it wasn’t that bad- no where near as crazy was walking up the Statue of Liberty last year to the crown. Good views once I got up there too of Florence. I also as you can see took some time for a self-photo J.