We were up early again to get to climb the Duomo before it got crowded. Our strategy worked as we were one of the first in. It was cool and not crowded at all. The view at the top was spectacular. We could see all of Florence and the surrounding mountains. We took way too man pictures... and then headed down. We checked out the cathedral itself which was very impressive inside, but with a simple Renaissance design. The Heaven and Hell fresco in the dome was a little scary. It would have been enough to get me to behave.
After that we had a guided tour of parts of Florence. Just us OBriens and a woman from Nigeria. I thought she did a nice job of explaining a lot of things about the Roman history, Renaissance histroy and modern histroy for the kids. We walked through some parts of town and drove through others. We drove through the Roman gate, saw the house where Galileo was under hourse arrest, went to beautiful overlook of Florence and visited Santa Croce church (Michaelangelo and Galileo buried there -- along with Machiavelli). Gallileo's finger in a jar had been moved to a diffrent spot in town. I was disappointed to miss that. I told Fiona that she can cut my finger off when I die and display in a jar along side Galileo's. She seemed to like that idea.
We had a snadwich and then headed for San Lorenzo Church which was ugly on the outside, but on the inside was designed by Brunellschi and had design elements from Michelangelo, Donatello and Lippi. Well worth the time and money.
Headed home for a siesta then back out to have dinner and take in the night. Dinner was a bit of a fiasco because we didn't have a firm plan and every place we went to didn't meet our expectiation on price or promise -- or was closed because it was Monday. We ended up at a place that charged too much money for mediocre food and sat next to some drunk, obnxious AMerican college aged kids. Should have done a little more Rick Steves research before heading out.
Got to get up early tomorrow for the Accademia Museum (Michaelangelo David statue).
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