We got to the apartment we were renting only get a text from the owner saying he was running late. Fortunately, it wasn't raining quite as hard as we waited. I found some cute graffiti.
Here's the road we stayed on. Instead of street signs on the street like here in the states, all the street signs are high up on the sides of buildings. Usually. Sometimes there's nothing and then you're out of luck. And lost.
This is the front door to our apartment building - but not taken that morning. That was a day or two later, when it wasn't raining and it wasn't dark and we weren't exhausted.
Alessio, the apartment owner, arrived about 20 minutes later. He carried my bag up (1 flight of stairs) and showed us around. The apartment was so great! He even left some food and fruit and drinks for us, which was so nice! I really liked Alessio. He was a great "host". (I use VRBO.com, in case you're wondering.)
It was so nice to not be in a little hotel room anymore! I decided to rent an apartment instead of a hotel room because in Italy these were actually cheaper and bigger than most of the hotels in the areas I wanted to visit.
Here's the dang washer/dryer combo machine. We quickly figured out that the dryer part actually didn't work. For the rest of the trip we had to hang wet clothes all over the place! (It was either that or have stinky clothes. Lesser of two evils and all of that.)
I stole these pictures from the interwebs, just so we could remember what it looked like. And because I couldn't really take many pictures because by the time I thought of that our clothes were hanging off of everything!
Tiny shower. Trying to shave my legs in there was adventure in itself!
I think it's cool that Italian door handles are in the middle of the door.
This was probably the most comfy bed of our trip. The pillows weren't great, but at least the bed wasn't rock hard like the train! (Or like in Rome. Oy.)
We never used the dishwasher. We bought food for breakfast, but we'd just wash what we used each morning.
We rested for a bit, thankful that most places didn't open until 8 or 9am. Then we geared up to start our day. It was better to keep moving than to sit still and feel the exhaustion! We walked to the Palazzo Vecchio to buy our Firenze Passes. These passes were a little pricey (I think 72 euros) but totally worth it. They got us into basically any museum or tourist attraction for free, plus we got to cut in line. Think FastPasses like at Disney, only Florence style.
It was here that we discovered a major difference between German cashiers and Italian cashiers. German cashiers are super friendly and helpful; Italian cashiers couldn't care less about you and what you need. I didn't take it personally; in fact, I found it kind of funny and endearing! (Kind of the polar opposite of Midwest friendliness!)
We walked into the beautiful Piazza Della Signoria, surrounded by amazing statues, gorgeous old buildings... and this metallic pile of poop. Seriously, who thought this statue was a good idea?!? It bugged me the entire trip. So awful.
That day was Duomo Day. Bucket list items galore! We went into the baptistry first, which was really cool. We got creaks in our necks going through the Bible scenes in the mosaics on the little dome.
Then Lance told me that Hazim told him that the week earlier and Spanish tourist was struck and killed by a brick that fell from the ceiling at a site like this. (He couldn't remember the exact location.) Well, if I had to die like that, I guess Florence would be a good place to do it!
The outside of the Duomo is just so amazing and pretty. I loved walking through the city and seeing the Duomo just popping up seemingly out of nowhere. I developed a Duomo sense, and while I could never get my bearings for other landmarks, like the river, I could tell where the Duomo was even when I couldn't see it!
Lance was a good sport. I think he was even more tired than I was, but he held his own in tromping all around. That's why I like traveling with him SO much more than the kids! (Among other reasons... but the lack of whining is certainly high up on that list!)
The inside of the cathedral (with the duomo) is actually not that interesting. It's like they used all their creativity for the outside!
Inside the duomo is pretty spectacular, though.
We had made reservations to climb the duomo later that afternoon, so we decided to hike up the campinile (bell tower) before lunch.
Giotto's campinile has 414 stone steps you have to climb up to reach the top. There are several stops along the way, which is both good and bad. Good because you need the rest, bad because I kept thinking surely we were at the top, but nope.
The whole trip I kept wishing my Fitbit Alta kept track of stairs like my last Fitbit did. Because dang. We climbed A LOT of stairs!
The view from the top was amazing, even if it was still a little hazy and overcast.
I loved all the red tiled roofs.
More of the duomo. I just loved that thing!
After the campinile we slogged over to the Duomo Museum. I got to see the original Ghiberti bronze doors, which I had studied in college and which Michelangelo dubbed the Gates of Paradise. They were awesome.
We saw lots of random statues. Like this one of a Pope who doesn't like any of your funny business.
By the end we were really tired. We decided to take an elevator because more stairs sounded like a bad idea. So we hopped into one and it took us... exactly half a flight up. I'm not joking. It took us to the little landing we were standing on when we decided to go down the half flight of stairs to take the elevator up to the 3rd floor. And it took forever to get there, too! We couldn't stop laughing.
We finally saw everything we wanted to, and while Lance got our bag from the bag check I took a picture of the Lego baptistry they had in the front. I love the little Lego men statues!
We decided it was definitely time to eat lunch and it was definitely time to try some Italian pizza. (I was getting a little tired of wurst. I know, how could that be?! But it was true.) We tried a little place a couple of streets over from the duomo. It was... okay. Not gross, but not that great, either. However, they served us the best sparkling mineral water of the trip, so there's that! It was fun to eat outside on the street.
Finally, it was time to hike the duomo. All 463 of them. It took a while, but it wasn't too bad because we had to keep stopping to let the people going down get by. As with the campinile, the higher you went, the steeper and smaller the staircase! It was definitely worth it just for the closer views of the duomo art. Amazing!
Being on the outside was pretty amazing, too.
As you can tell, it was a little windy!
Here you can see Brunelleschi's famous dome-within-a-dome design that allowed the duomo to be so big. We were literally between both domes!
Look how high up we were - the people below look so tiny!
It was just so amazing. Bucket list item definitely checked.
After the duomo I decided I wanted to go see Santa Croce church, which is where Michelangelo, Machiavele, Marconi, and Galileo are buried. Is that weird to want to see where all those famous guys are buried? I didn't care, I wanted to see them.
So we trekked out, thinking it would just be a 10-15 minute walk. And it would have been, if we had followed the map more carefully. Oops. We ended up walking at least 40 minutes, gosh dang it. It wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't already been so dang tired. But I was on a mission! Plus, we had to get there before it closed, so time was of the essence.
We eventually made it there and got to see all the funeral monuments, which was pretty cool.
Here's Michelangelo.
And Galileo.
And Da Vinci, who is not buried here but honored with a plaque.
The inside of the church. It really was quite pretty.
And poor forgotten Marconi. But not as forgotten as Machiavelli, who we saw but I didn't get a picture of.
The outside of the church is really quite pretty, too. I was just glad we had found it before nightfall! (Only just barely!)
On the way home I started not feeling that great. I think it was a combination of extreme exhaustion and lots of walking and stair climbing. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was go out for a long Italian dinner. (Poor Lance. I think that's the only thing he wanted to do.) But fortunately for me Lance is the best, so we got some sandwiches from a little nearby cafe and took them home to eat while we watched Stranger Things 2.
I'm pretty sure we were asleep by 8pm because we had basically gotten zero sleep the night before. It was probably the hardest I slept the entire time on this trip!
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