Journey to Mordor (via Florence)

A day of adventuring needs a proper breakfast. And the definition of a proper breakfast in Florence is the doughnut shop next to the hotel. These doughnuts themselves brought a surprise into our day- despite being the kind of doughnuts with holes in the middle, they had filling! As Heather said, "I didn't know that was possible in the doughnut world!" It was really terribly exciting.

With the known universe already penetrated, we set out for the top of the Duomo to see Florence from an impressive height. It was indeed a lovely view, except that we had to climb about ten billion stairs. Nice pictures. Sore legs. Ow. As I'm sure you guessed from the title of the post, we likened it to walking to Mordor, except up a bunch of dark steps instead of touring New Zealand.

Then, of course, we had to go down the stairs to actually do anything. My mom counted 470 steps, but I'm pretty sure there were more on the way up. (We did go down a different way, so it's possible.) To reward ourselves for making it, we had our daily gelato. I really like this gelato-a-day thing.

Once we had enjoyed said gelato, we went to the Galleria dell'Accademia to see David. He was there all right, though we took immediate notice of his disproportionate hands and feet. Still, the details in the statue were quite incredible, as you would expect from one of the Ninja Turtles. They also had a cool music museum with displays of old instruments- including two hurdy-gurdies!

We continued into the Dome, which we had seen from above while climbing. It was the first of many cathedrals we saw today, although in this one we also ventured into the crypt below. It was not as exciting as I imagined- I suppose I was picturing sarcophagi and gold and jewels. It was nothing so glamorous, just many dusty chunks of rock and a few pottery fragments.

From there we went to the Baptistry, which had lots of gold and pretty painted ceilings. There were also a number of statues inside, though I don't know who they were supposed to be.

Santa Croce cathedral was lovely also, having lots of stained glass (though not as much as Sainte-Chapelle in Paris). It was also home to the tombs of such famous Italians as Michelangelo, Galileo, and Dante, which made for several pictures. There were a lot of tombs on the floor, but because people can walk on them (they're everywhere, so it would be totally impractical to rope them off or something), a lot of the words were hard to read. Also, my Latin isn't that good.

The next two cathedrals we tried to visit (Santo Spirito and Santa Maria Novella) were closed- one had a private mass going on and one had closed for the day to prepare for an evening mass, so it sort of put an end to our day a bit early. Honestly, though, we were okay with that; especially after our trek this morning, our feet were killing us, and we'd already been in several cathedrals today. We got dinner and went back to the hotel to relax some, since we have to be up early tomorrow to catch our train.

Florence from way higher up than I am comfortable with being.

The ceiling in the Baptistry.

Santa Croce.

Obligatory artsy shot...

Outside our hotel room.