Wednesday, December 17th

Wednesday was our day in Florence.



Like our trip to Pompeii, we decided to take the same charter bus to Florence. It was about a 4 and a half hour drive out to Florence, and like before, I slept most of the time, although I did read a bit here and there.



We finally arrived in Florence at around 12:30 and immediately set out in search of several churches that we'd be visiting that day. I don't really know what the name of the first church we visited was, but as usual, it was very large and very impressive. It was odd though, all of the churches in Florence seemed to be going under some kind of renovation. They all had scaffolding somewhere inside our outside.

The second church we went to was the Duomo and this one was amazing. Most of the church was relatively normal, but the dome inside was the most amazing part. It was the largest dome ever created since the Pantheon and it is absolutely enormous. On the inside, you can see scenes from Dante's Inferno painted all around it. Later that day, we even went up to the top where you can stand inside right next to giant frescoes. We also went outside to the very top of the dome. This view was absolutely breaktaking. Luckily it was very sunny that day and from the top of the duomo we got a great view of the whole of Florence.

After the duomo, we went to the Academia Gallery to look at Michelangelo's David, among other pieces of art. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the gallery, but being there was enough. It's amazing how much detail was put into that single statue and how extraordinarily lifelike it is. Looking at that sculpture alone, you can see why Michelangelo is considered one of the greatest artists.

After the gallery, it was time to leave Florence. Many of us were disappointed because we didn't get nearly as much time for shopping as we had hoped. I, myself, had planned on doing most of my Christmas shopping in Florence since Florence is supposed to be the city for shopping. But we got on the bus and had to leave. We got back to Rome around 9 or so and I was, again, very tired and went to bed rather early.

Pictures:

From Rome '08