Today we climbed the Duomo and the bell tower. That’s a total of 879 steps, all climbed in less than half a day. After the narrow and steep corridors of spiral staircases the view from both the top of the dome and bell tower are amazing. Additionally halfway up, we got a break from stairs to see the paintings on the inside of the dome. All of the paintings are beautiful religious scenes. The climb up is very challenging, but once you reach the top you get a citywide view in all directions. Being up so high on the dome isn’t actually that scary. I was only afraid of dropping my phone and GoPro. After escaping the dark and intimidating steps, we were immediately followed by a creepy panhandler. Yes, a very aggressive, creepy panhandler. She continued to follow us for about 20 ft until she finally gave up. That was the first out of the total 5 homeless/panhandlers we saw during our time. After a gelato break we saw one of the most famous sculptures of all time, the David. Pictures do not give the full awe of the piece. He stands about 21ft tall in the center of the room, light shining right on him illuminating every feature. Later we visited the Medici tombs. Up until this visit I thought the famous Michelangelo tomb sculptures were next to each other and outside. It is neither. They stand facing each other in the Medici Chapel. We then took another break outside the Chapel, where I ended up playing some hacky sack with another random American tourist. After dinner in the evening, we wandered Plaza Vecchio, one of the many Medici palaces. This stop was very cool, because the majority of the art works were tied to Greek and Roman mythology, which is one of my favorite topics. The museum was also excavating Roman ruins below the building.
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