Above & Beyond Florence

 Its seems to be a typical morning ritual to swing open our green shutters, take a breath of morning air and people watch for a few moments, before doing anything else. I looked up and down the streets like every other morning this week and noticed a large number of white tents set up in the Piazzo di Santissima Anauziata. My roommate and I had the entire day to ourselves, so we decide to go looking for the Statue of David since it meant walking through the Piazzo to get there. We didn’t quite find The David, but walking through the Artisan Fair we had our first interaction with Gypsies.We witnessed one gypsy with a mouth full of grapes running from a fruit vender. It felt like we were in the middle of the Hunchback of Notre Dome Disney Movie!  After wandering the streets near our apartment we came back for lunch. What we did next I wish everyone could experience at some point in their lives!

My roommate and I decided to tour the Duomo, which is only down the street from our apartment. We forked over another 8 euro and climbed the 465 steps to get to the top of Brunelleschi’s cupola overlooking all of Florence and Tuscany! Breathtaking, magnificent, vast and detailed are just a few words I would use to describe the view. The climb to the top was somewhat challenging at times. I wasn’t sure how narrow the walkways were going to get or how much higher the incline of the steps could possibly go.

Eventually we made it to the top, but that was the easy part apparently. Getting back down meant you had to leave the same way you came up! The more people that climbed up the ladder, the less people were able to leave the roof top.

The line seemed like it would NEVER stop and I personally was starting to questioning how much 70 or more tourists, stuffed full of Italian bread and pasta could weight? So me, being the outspoken American leader, politely asked the people at the bottom of the stairs to wait so a few people could climb down. At that point I wished I could speak 5 different languages but I just stuck to basic American lingo! “Stop please, wait one moment, uhh, thank you!” It was quite entertaining and it got the job done! 

When we finally made it down the 465 steps, we headed toward our apartment, but only after stopping for gelato on the way! Feeling rather adventurous I decided to try something a little different then my normal flavor of gelato. I had chocolate gelato on a croissant from a little cafe in the Duomo Plazza. And let me tell you what, it’s a must have! While the gelato here is extremely good, i would have to say that climbing to the top of the Duomo has been the best part of my study abroad experience so far!