2022-07-19: Florence Day 2

We were able to sleep a little later this morning. We got ourselves up at 8:00am, got cleaned up, and headed out for the morning. We grabbed some pastries at a local shop and headed to the Accademia Gallery.

We had tickets to enter the Accademia Gallery at 10:00am. The Accademia Gallery is an art museum with paintings and sculptures from the 13th through the 16th centuries. Most of them are religious. It also houses Michelangelo’s statue of David. We had to pick up our tickets from the ticket office ahead of time so we arrived at the ticket office around 9:45am. We exchanged our voucher for our tickets and got in the 10:00am entry line. We were in the museum shortly after 10:00. We made our way through the exhibits and tried to get the boys interested in some of the paintings, but they just weren’t very interested in the artwork unfortunately. They were a little more interested in the statue of David. They also had an area with about 10 bronze Michelangelo busts along with 3D printed reproductions of the busts and information on how they made them which the kids found interesting. It’s not a huge place so we explored the museum for about an hour and then headed back to the apartment for a bit.

Amanda did some laundry and the boys relaxed for about an hour before we headed out again. We grabbed some paninis at a local shop for lunch on our way to the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, also known as the Duomo. The Duomo is a series of four buildings including the cathedral, baptistery, bell tower, and a museum. The cathedral has a dome ceiling which you can climb to the top of. You can also climb to the top of the bell tower. Patrick expressed an interest to climb both the cathedral and the bell tower. We had timed entry tickets for the dome at 1:30pm. We entered the cathedral and climbed the 463 steps to the top of the dome. It was quite a climb. Sections of the steps are quite steep. There is a room part way up with statues of a few Florence bishops and a few saints with ties to Florence. Continuing on, you enter the interior of the dome near the ceiling of the cathedral. You can see the amazing paintings on the roof up close and get a great view of the cathedral below. Then you continue on to top of the dome and end up on a viewing area on the exterior of the cathedral. It is an amazing view of Florence from the top. Once on top and seeing that we were actually higher than the bell tower, he expressed his desire to climb the bell tower had subsided. After a few minutes enjoying the view, we took a different staircase down from the dome. They have a room partway down that exhibits some of the tools that were used to build the cathedral. Once at the bottom of the stairs, we exited outside to the square.

We walked around the building a bit to the entrance to the cathedral. We entered the cathedral and enjoyed the view of the dome ceiling from below along with the alters in the cathedral. There is an odd clock on the opposite wall from the alter with only one hand and 24 markings on the dial. After exploring the main level of the cathedral, we took some steps down to the lower level. They have uncovered artifacts from the origins of the cathedral underneath. There are original mosaic tile floors from the roman times when the church was first built. Over the years, the church was expanded and has grown into the cathedral it is today. This cathedral has roots dating back over 2000 years! They have restored what they could from what they’ve found so far and have rebuilt the original alter as best they can underneath.

After exploring the cathedral, we went next door to the baptistery. It is an octagon shaped building with more amazing artwork on the ceilings and walls. A large section of it was under restoration and draped off unfortunately. We spent a few minutes admiring the artwork and then exited the building.

We returned to the apartment stopping in to a couple of shops along the way. The kids found a few candy shops but were shocked by the candy prices so continued on. We relaxed at the apartment for a while and let everyone cool off. We headed out for dinner around 6:30pm and went to a restaurant down the block from our apartment. It was in the shade of an alley and they had fans blowing water mist over the tables.

After dinner, we returned to the apartment and dropped off the kids. Amanda and Darrell went for a bit of a walk over the Ponte Vecchio and the Piazza della Signoria to get a few more pictures before leaving in the morning. We returned to the apartment, finished our packing, and called it a night. We head to Rome in the morning.