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Sunday, June 15, 2008

The Birth Place of the Renaissance...

Florence. After another 3 hour train ride we arrived in Florence. Our first stop of the day was McDonald's :( for lunch as we only had an afternoon left in Florence. We checked into our hotel and then it was off to the Accademia. Here we saw the David by Michelangelo. We also saw Michelangelo's unfinished works. It was really amazing to see the work in the stones that he made. Sorry no pictures were aloud in the Accademia but a replica of the David is shown below. After the Accademia it was off to see the Ponte Vecchio Bridge. This bridge has shops on it like the one in Venice. However, the only stores on it were jewelry shops.





Next the Duomo (church). These pictures do not do this building justice. It was huge. Spencer and I decided to climb Brunelleschi's dome. Each section of this dome is self supporting and is a "dome with in a dome" (that is why we could climb it). It has 653 steps one way but the view was well worth the burn. Here are some pictures on the way up and the view from the top. You can see how close we are to the mural in the dome.








Our stop in Florence was short but well worth it. Next stop Roma!

5 comments:

The Ririe's said...

Sounds like that was a pretty good butt workout climbing all those stairs!

Jillyan said...

We had fun with you guys last week! It was neat to see all of your pictures. Thanks for sharing them with us!

BECKY said...

Way to go on climbing to the top! That's awesome! Your pictures are beautiful!

Meg said...

Hey guys, we hope you don't mind but we found your blog the other day and took a little glimpse at it. It was fun to see you at the Coulam's. we need to get together again soon!

georgandlaurasuhren said...

Love the photos and that you have a blog too! Your Venezia pictures are fabulous reminds me of our trip there. We want to go again someday. I think we should plan a Europe trip together, the old roomies. We could have Spencer as our Italian guide and Georg for German. Guess we will have to make it happen then...