On top of the dome!
The Cathedral Saint Mary of The Flower… Hi all, sorry for the gap between posts, we’ve been running around like crazy! :-) I wanted to share with you some of my pics from il Duomo, the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Florence. It’s the third largest cathedral in the world and we climbed it, wahooo!! (And before the rain arrived!)
Il Duomo
Climbing up this incredible structure is quite amazing, you can actually climb all the way up into the cupola! Going up into the dome gives you the pleasure of seeing the inside of the cathedral and all of Florence from a bird’s eye view. It’s really exhilarating!
The climb begins...
I highly recommend it to anyone who’s okay with heights and tight spaces… When climbing up into the dome you’re actually in between two domes, one nested inside the other.
Between the Domes
Until recently, I didn’t realize that the dome wasn’t added until about 100 years after construction began on the cathedral.
Duomo Window
Ultimately, is was Filippo Brunelleschi, the master architect, that succeeded in figuring out how to construct his masterpiece (more than four million bricks were used).
Keep climbing...
He actually had to implement a new method of building and invented new tools to do so, being the first to be granted a patent to protect his ideas from theft. Now, this is just about the dome, I haven’t even talked about the inside yet. Truly beautiful with no less than 44 magnificent stained glass windows. But I’ll just let the remaining pictures speak for themselves today.. :-) More still to come about this beautiful symbol of Florence.
Rest area on the way up.
Inside the Dome
Made it to the top!
View of Palazzo Vecchio
View the Campanile (Bell Tower) and Piazza della Republicca
The Cupola, that's where we were!
Inside Il Duomo
Inside Il Duomo
Beautiful stained glass window.
Organ Pipes
Inside Il Duomo
Whoa, looking down! Safety glass made it difficult to shoot... :-0
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