We start the day with a wonderful breakfast provided by our hotel, Hotel Art Artelier, with meats/cheese, eggs, yogurt, pastries, croissants, and fruits. The weather continues to be perfect, sunny with the temperatures starting around 60 degrees warming up to the 70’s in the afternoon.
Our first activity was to tour the Leonardo Da Vinci museum. The staff here have created by hand, models of many of Da Vinci’s drawings and plans. Much of the museum is hands-on, encouraging you to try the working models utilizing pulleys, gears, levers and structural concepts. Other more sophisticated models were too fragile for touching. Da Vinci was employed by some kings to design machines of war, so some of the models were for the military.
After the Da Vinci Museum, four of us had opted to climb the Duomo Dome. There are 463 steps to the top of the Florence Duomo dome. Our timed tickets were for 12:45, the first time slot after the church was dedicated to Sunday services. We arrived 10 minutes early and the line was already 50+, but once they started letting people in, we were walking into the cathedral in no time at all. What an experience! Worn stone steps, over a thousand years old, wind up the cathedral wall with a periodic small platform for a change in step direction that we could use to rest a few minutes or enable everyone to catch up. Once you get to the base of the dome, you walk out into the cathedral with a direct view up at the Last Judgement fresco on the dome ceiling painted by Giorgio Vasari – Federico Zuccari in 1572-1579. We traverse around a quarter of the dome circumference on a walkway before reaching a new set of slowly spiraling steps up between the inner and outer dome structures. Then we traversed a second walkway further up in the dome. From there, you look down at the mosaic floor of the cathedral or closer views up at the fresco. The final step segment was steep tightly spiraled tiny steps. Your legs are like rubber, but you hear others outside, so you push up. A final straight step of a dozen steps takes you up to the “latern” structure at the top with a large viewing platform you can go around to see all angles of the city.
This dome is constructed from flat bricks, no supporting beams relying on the weight of the lantern on top for downward pressure keeping it intact. More information on this engineering marvel can be found at:
At the top, we rested, took celebratory photos, and took in the views. After about 15 minutes we were guided to the stairwell for the journey back down. There are a single set of steps in the dome, so we needed to go down before the next group came up to the dome level. We had our own down step-case below the base of the dome. When reaching solid ground outside, we went straight to a cafe and ordered some refreshing beers.
The rest of the group went out shopping while we climbed. After recuperating sufficiently with our beers, we went to join them. We found them at Piazza della Repubblica finishing their lunch. Then the whole group headed back to hotel to get ready for dinner, leisurely walking down streets filled with shops. We got separated into two groups again with one group needing to rest more from the dome climb and the other stopping at more shops. The shopping group had one more beer rest stop along the way.
Tonight’s dinner was at Il Santa Maria Ristorante, looking out onto the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella. The weather was nice enough to sit outdoors and we were greeted with a glass of Prosecco while waiting to be seated. As it seems at each meal so far, the food is fantastic. Primi first courses of pasta, and secondi main course of meat provides so much food, but we still ate it all!
Menu 
Leave a comment