Living in Florence is wonderful and has perks such as living near the Duomo and seeing it every single day. It truly is a beautiful sight and honestly, I never got tired of it! Admiring its beauty on the outside was one thing, but now we got to go inside of the Duomo today!
One of the things we did was climb to the top of the Duomo via a very narrow, tight and claustrophobic stairway. Being on that isn’t too fond on heights or tight spaces, I declined the trek to the top. Yes, I was a bit sad that I didn’t go, but I didn’t want to freak out halfway to the top and have nowhere to go.
Luckily, my friend Emily and our roommate Brittany didn’t go either. So, the three of us decided to check out the Baptistery which is straight across from the Church itself. The outside of the Baptistery had an interesting design with blue and white and the one thing that was extravagant was the gold door that had a very detailed picture – well pictures.
The inside though was something completely different than the outside. It was just so majestic and beautifully detailed. My eye didn’t know where to go, with gold trimming everything, it was literally shinning everywhere.
Other than all that gold being molded into this Baptistery, there was the ceiling of the place, that was also detailed. It told the stories from the Bible – from Adam and Eve to how the Devil himself came to be.
Another interesting tidbit I learned from Brittany that day was the Devil was shown in the color blue most times because he had such a cold heart. I’ve never seen the Devil in blue, it’s always that stereotypical red, like the flames of hell or something like that.
Moving on from the Baptistery, we went into the actual Church itself which was of course huge and detailed just like everything else. The front of the Church was something I’ve never seen. Marble and statues and gold were everywhere along with panels of Biblical stories. Past Popes were looking down at you and there was this sense of how do I describe it… almost like a Holy Spirit?
It might sound unreal and a bit weird to say something like that, especially since I’m not really a religious person – I’m still spiritual and I go by my feelings and that’s what I felt. Yeah, go ahead, call me crazy, but that’s my take on it.
The Church was big and spacious and you had to be respectful of course so, having your voice under a whisper was a must. The most amazing thing of the inside to me was the 24 hour clock that was up on the wall and the most amazing thing was it was still going after hundreds of years of operation. it had all 24 hours on the clock face and a new day would begin when the sun set completely.
From there, we went down to the basement of the Church which contained the excavation site and I wasn’t expecting to see these ancient ruins and floors with old Church relics. There was this one section where the floor was built on top of continuously. The layers told of different eras and years.
The stone work on the old floors was truly amazing – beautiful designs that were put together one by one. The amount of time it took to even make one simple design must have been just unimaginable let alone a huge collage. The symbols and patterns they used to tell a story or to honor someone was amazing.
After looking at the ancient ruins and relics in the Duomo, we went on our way to Piazzale Michelangelo which was an interesting bus ride within itself. Very bumpy and hilly and I was thrown into a few people on up there!
The bus ride was worth it because we were graced with a wonderful view of Florence and the river. Getting to see the fake David statue was cool, but I felt a bit cheated since it wasn’t the real one.
After enjoying the view and the breeze up there at the Piazzale, we did a bit of souvenir shopping of course and then made our way back down to the bustling city.
A Niki In Italy 