There is always a church post, isn't there?

Florence's main ABC is the Duomo. In Italian, Duomo translates to cathedral. I always thought it came from Dome. But no, duomo comes from the Latin "domus" meaning house. In this case, the house of God.

Florence's Duomo is Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. It's made of pink, green and white marble and the decorations on the facade are very elaborate. It looks like a giant wedding cake. Its "world's largest" is its dome. It's made of red brick and is the largest brick dome ever constructed. When the Duomo was built, it was the largest church in the Italy. Until the Pope got cranky and decided that the largest church should be in Rome and not in Florence. Ok, enough about the stats.

Because we're a bit meh about churches now, we usually visit them for one thing. To climb them. Andrew and Jess, conquering the churches of the world. At the Duomo in Florence, you can climb the bell tower or the dome. We choose to climb the Dome.

The climb itself is quite fun. It's not just one big spiral staircase (which I hate, because it makes me so dizzy).

The first part of the climb takes you out on to a narrow balcony under the dome which overlooks the inside of the church. The inside of the dome is painted with a representation of the Last Judgement. The scenes from hell are quite disturbing. There is a skeleton with a scythe rounding up people to send them to hell. A faceless monster chomps on naked men. It's rather detailed and we spent a bit of time taking it all in. The balcony is so narrow that it is one way only and no passing. We couldn't stray too long because of the people who were waiting behind us.

The second part of the climb is easy. Just normal stairways, back inside the walls of the church. On the right, the dome wall curves away from you.

The third bit of the climb is the fun part. You have to climb over the top of the dome. Climbing this stair case had a bit of an Alice in Wonderland feel to it. It's a staircase built into a curved floor. Going up it was quite easy. Later on we had to climb down it which was a little disorientating.

Finally, you climb one last steep ladder to emerge into the bright sunshine. The view from the top is impressive. But, of course it is. You're standing a top the tallest building in the city overlooking the beautiful city of Florence.





More photos on Flickr.

For our fourth wedding anniversary, Andrew and I spent the weekend in Florence. We visited the Academia and the Uffizi. We climbed the Duomo. We did a side trip to Sienna and San Gigimano. We soaked up the sunshine. We ate gelato. As wedding anniversaries go, it was pretty perfect. Yes, we're very lucky.

They say you are either a Florence person or a Venice person. They are two different cities with two different personalities. You can't love them both equally. (Like the Sydney / Melbourne debate, I guess. )

Now I loved Venice, so before our trip to Florence, I wondered which city would be my favourite. Florence or Venice?

To tell you the truth, I didn't get Florence until we climbed the hill to Piazza Michelangelo. There is a fantastic view of the city from the Piazza. The Duomo dwarfs the sunny yellow houses surrounding it. Standing up there, you can imagine that you've travelled back in time to the Renaissance. (Well, if you ignore the cars zooming around and the sound of ambulance sirens.)

With that view, I fell in love with Florence.

So Florence or Venice? Am I allowed to love both? I'm such a hussy...