Florence again!

Last Saturday a few of us went back to Florence to see things that we we're unable to see on our school field trip.

First thing on our list of activities? Climbing the Duomo of Florence! Inside the dome in the picture is a massive, brilliant, fresco of Hell (with a few blips of heaven at the top. As my teacher says, "Hell is more interesting to paint". What we did was climb the tiny, old, marble staircase all the way up to the first level which is right under the circle window in the picture. Then you climb the curved staircase to the tippy top to walk around outside (beautiful). Then you climb back down the scary curved, tiny, deathly staircase and they let you walk around the frescos again but this time we were above the circle window (there is a thick band running around the building, that is where we were). So you really get to get up close and personal with all the poor souls being tortured in hell.

Despite the gruesome scenes the Fresco's are beautiful and getting so close to one is an amazing experience. Unlike a Monet, the pictures are still extremely clear and detailed close up so you get the full experience of emotion.

Eventually I adored the fresco's but when you first step out of the staircase onto the ledge in the dome you look down and see how high you are. I was fine with the height, until I looked across and realized that I was standing on a concrete walkway that was attached to the actual church walls only on one side and had no other support. That was about the time I got nervous, and lets just say looking up at a bunch of people falling into a vat of fire didn't help at first...

The hole in the wall is not part of the painting but is actually used to let the painting breathe because when the weather changes it contracts and expands if it can't breathe, causing the painting to crack. There are other smaller holes that indicate where the builder, and eventually the painter, put in wood to stand on (to build or paint). Well turns out that last summer the restoration crew put the wood into the wrong holes, and while they attempted to do touch ups more cracks appeared, then HUGE cracks appeared all the way through the wall because the building couldn't breathe.

The cracks made were so big and thick that when you climb up the curve of the dome, on the OTHER side of these paintings, you can see huge cracks through the concrete.

Chances of surviving that experience seemed pretty thin.
The stained glass window reflected onto the protection plastic wall.

That's the bell tower across the way.
Next we went to L'accademia! I LOVED IT (but I love all museums so...). I couldn't take any pictures (snuck this one of our pal David) but the art there was AMAZING. Just like at the Uffizi, but there are way more statues at the academia.
After that we went to Chiesa Di Santa Croce, a Franciscan church that Galileo, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo Bruni, and Dante are burried in.

Dante's tomb.


Michelangelo's Tomb



Galileo's tomb.


Josh and I walked around to find Michelangelo's old house.

These next pictures are from a night walk I took and used a longer exposure on my camera. Just for fun.