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Firenze (Florence)

One of the first thing that I noticed about Florence was (a) how narrow the streets are and (b) how CROWDED they are. You seem to take your life into your own hands while walking down the street! Here is a scene from the main "flea market" area of the city. Unlike most other flea markets; however, most of the owners had signs on their stands to indicate that the prices were non-negotiable.

This is (one small part) of the Cathedral. But you can tell immediately how ornate the building is! Along the top row you can see statues carved out of marble and those statues are larger than life. Try to keep that in mind to get a sense of the size of this place.

From our observation, religion was HUGE in Italy. And especially in Rome (you know, Vatican Church and all). Most (if not all) the paintings we viewed had some religious conotation. And the Duomo was no exception -- after all, it IS a church.

Here is the roof of the dome of the Basilica itself. You may have heard of the painter...Michaelangelo! Honestly, the dude was everywhere! He was comissioned to do many paintings, sculptures, etc. by the Catholic Church in that time period. I can only imagine how long it would take to do ONE PIECE let alone all the amazing things he did in his lifetime.

For the price of (something like) 7 Euro's each, you were able to climb to the top of the Duomo. Here is the view from the top.


I don't know if this comes through well, or not, but this is the stairway to the top. You can see the curvature in the staircase as you climb higher and it was little wider than me. Europe was a LOT of walking and a lot of steps. To get to the top was something like 250+

posted by Team Shawn Michaels @ 10:32 a.m.