Monday May 28th

View of the ceiling of the Duomo

Monday began bright and early as the group enjoyed the hotel’s free breakfast before departing for the Duomo. I was worried that the rain had followed us from Rome as we left our hotel, but fortunately the rain stopped as we made the short trip to the Duomo. The Duomo, also known as the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, is a Roman Catholic cathedral that was completed in 1436. We actually learned about the construction of the church, as well as its architect, through one of our required readings for our trip.  Because we have visited the naves of so many churches on our trip so far, we decided to only buy the pass that allowed us to ascend the tiny stairwells to the top of the massive dome. This plan actually turned out well because there were periodic viewing, also functioning as breath-catching, platforms as we made our way to the top that allowed us to see the worshipping space in the church after all. Once we finally arrived at the top, the view of the entire city of Florence was incredible. It was neat to look down and see the entire city below us in addition to the lack of any buildings even close to approaching our height. We were also fortunate that the rain clouds had for the most part burned off, allowing us to take some great pictures to remember our trip to the top of the Duomo.

View of Florence from the top of the Duomo

Following our descent from the Duomo, we were scheduled to visit the Medici Palace. For some reason that I am not sure of, the Palace happened to be closed on Monday so we were not able to visit the Palace. Since our professors had planned on finishing our day after our visit to the Medici Palace we were released for the day to tour on our own throughout the city. Still on a bit of an art-overload from the day prior, two guys and I decided to pass on checking out any more museums and simply walk around the city and see the sites. Our journey took us from various shops across the Arno River, to a combination farmer’s market and shopping market. After looking around at various Italian leather products we actually ended up eating a fairly cheap lunch at the farmer’s market portion of the large setup. We passed the rest of the day’s time by again walking around with no real destination in mind, but seeing a lot of interesting sites along the way. Even though it would have been interesting to visit the Medici Palace, it was nice to pick our own destinations for the day. 

Monday wrapped up our short stay in Florence. While we didn’t stay in Florence for very long, it was nice to see a less-hectic and smaller Italian city after Rome. One thing I noticed about Florence during my brief stay was the abundance of Americans in Florence. During our long walk around the city, we couldn’t go more than a few feet without hearing someone speaking English. After the huge presence of foreign languages in Barcelona and Rome it was almost comforting to hear a few American voices again other than our own. Tuesday morning we will be taking the train to Venice, perhaps one of the most anticipated stops on our trip in my mind.