We started our Northern Italy extravaganza in Firenze. Full of gorgeous Renaissance architecture, Firenze was without a doubt my favorite city that we visited last week. We walked out of the train station to the smell of leather and the shock of cold, northern air, dropped our bags at the hotel, and began to tour the city. Our first stop was Santa Maria Novella, where we sketched the facade that I instantly recalled from last year's history class.
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| Santa Maria Novella Facade Sketch |
After sketching for a half hour, we walked to il Duomo. I had been to Florence in high school, but I didn't realize how significant the cathedral and Brunelleschi's dome (which marks the beginning of the Renaissance in architecture) were then. Walking inside il Duomo for the first time honestly took my breath away. I can't even begin to describe how I felt--it was just a completely surreal experience. It took everything in me to stop my eyes from welling up with tears; I still can't believe the space was inexplicably able to move me that much!
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| This photo doesn't even begin to do il Duomo justice... |
The experience of il Duomo just kept getting better. After we explored the nave of the church, we got to climb to the top of Brunelleschi's dome! It was so cool to move through the two brick shells of the dome, going up winding stairs, long straight stairs, spiral stairs, thin stairs, wide stairs, stairs that curved up over the dome. . .
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| Stairs curving up over the inner shell of the dome |
And 463 steps later, we were on top of the world.
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| View towards Santa Croce from the Cupola |
We must have been on the cupola for at least a half hour, taking in the panoramic views of Firenze with its backdrop of mountains. Finally, sadly, we had to go back down.
We walked through the Piazza della Signoria and down to the Arno River. The Arno is so much prettier than the Tiber. The embankments aren't as high as in Rome, and the water looks much less dirty. Later, we walked through the Palazzo Vecchio (off the Piazza della Signoria) and saw Santa Croce, where the tombs of Galileo and Michelangelo are. Later, we went to the Uffizi Gallery, where Boticelli's "The Birth of Venus" painting is.
We had dinner as a group the first night in Firenze at a trattoria just over the Ponte Vecchio on the other side of the Arno. We had a Florentine specialty--bistecca (steak). It was delicious, especially after I had been craving steak for the past three weeks.
The next day, we saw Michelangelo's "David." We had a half hour there, and since it is forbidden to take photos in the gallery, I decided to sit down and attempt a sketch of the marble masterpiece. It felt like my pencil was moving of its own free will, and I was hardly breathing as I saw the David materialize by my own hand in my sketchbook. I was incredibly focused on what I was doing, but I could sense people coming up beside and behind me to gape at my drawing. Looking back on my work, I've never been prouder of a single sketch in my life:
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| Sketch of Michelangelo's David |
After leaving the Galleria dell'Accademia, we walked to Brunelleschi's Ospedale degli Innocenti, where we saw the Principle of the Second Man at work in the piazza. Then we had the rest of the day to ourselves. A couple of us walked down to the Arno, where we noticed a church facade on a distant hill that looked incredibly familiar. So what did we do? Go on a pilgrimage and scale the small mountain of a hill to find out what it was, of course! As it turns out, the hill we had to climb was the same hill where the Piazza Michelangelo is, which offers a spectacular view of Firenze and il Duomo.
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| View of il Duomo from Piazza Michelangelo |
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| San Miniato al Monte |
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| Il Duomo |
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