Today after school, Katie and I visited the two major churches of Florence: the Duomo (a.k.a. the Cathedral of Santa Marie del Fiore) and Santa Croce (Holy Cross).
Santa Croce
We headed first to Santa Croce, stopping for lunch along the way. Unlike Rome, the churches in Florence aren’t free to enter unless you are entering only a specific area for prayer, so we had to pay 6 Euros to get in.
Inside Santa Croce
The good news is that it’s a beautiful 14th century church that’s been pretty well perserved. It’s amazing to think how ma.ny millions of people have spent time praying in this church and encountering God here.
For history and art buffs, this is a famous church because it is where Michelangelo and Galileo are buried.
Michelangelo’s tomb
Galileo’s tomb
After Santa Croce, we made a gelato stop at a place that had a lot of flavors. I had pink grapefruit (tart but good) and mandarin orange (rather refreshing).
Then we headed to the Duomo to see if we could climb to the top of the dome. We had purposely waited until mid-afternoon because we’d heard that mid-day was the worst for long lines, and we’d definitely seen long lines there on other days when we’d passed by. The line did look quite short when we arrived, so Katie stood in line while I ran off to buy tickets. By the time I returned, Katie was nearly at the front of the line so the timing was perfect.
For those of you who don’t know us personally, I’m claustrophobic and Katie is not a fan of climbing up or down stairs, so the fact that we made it up the 465 steps to the top of this dome is quite an accommplishment for us!
You start by climbing up this staircase that is basically six steps up, turn right, up two steps, turn right again, up six more steps, turn right, up two steps, turn right, and so on. You do that for about 100 steps.
Then you get to the spiral staircase part. This is a really tight spiral really made for only one person at a time. Two-way traffic is not an option here.
By now you’ve climbed over 200 steps, and you’re at the inside lower portion of the actual dome, so you can see up close all the frescoes painted inside the dome. The general theme seemed to be souls in hell at the bottom, souls waiting in purgatory in the middle, and Jesus and the saved in heaven toward the top of the dome.
The remaining 180 steps are inside the sloping walls of the dome itself. You circle around and around until you get to a section that is virtually straight up. It was almost like climbing a ladder. Let’s just say a lot of people gasp (or swear) when they see this section.
Uphill climb inside the dome
Then, finally, you’re at the top, and the view is amazing.
By the time we climbed all the way back down, we were exhausted, but we wanted to see the inside of the church. Unfortunately, you have to go outside again and reenter the church. Inside, there isn’t a whole lot of artwork to admire, and if you wanted to pray, you had to go into a special roped off section of the church.
Katie and I headed to that section, and after getting the attention of the man who worked there, I asked, “Possiamo entrare per preghiere?” (Can we enter to pray?) He nodded to us and let us in past the barricade, but wouldn’t let in the two woman behind us! There was only one other man praying in this small section.
After a while a priest came in and sat outside the confessional. Then a man came up and asked me in Italian where the confessions where. I pointed to the priest and said, “Li. Spero.” (There. I hope.)
“E libero?” he asked. (Is he free?)
“Si, io credo.” (Yes, I believe.)
I was half tempted to attempt confession in Italian, but this priest was taking a long time with each penitent, and I worried I wouldn’t understand what the priest was saying even if I could manage to confess my sins in Italian.
After our prayer time, we headed out of the church. It was too early for dinner, so we just did a simple aperitivo (pre-dinner drink and appetizer) at the same place we got dessert and wine last night. The hostess even recognized us!
