On to Venice

This morning was our last in Florence, which is a little bit sad. We have really enjoyed visiting Florence. It has really grown on us in the last couple of days. We like that Florence is a little slower paced than the other cities we have visited so far.

For our last morning in Florence, we decided to climb the dome of the cathedral, the Duomo, all 463 steps. That’s right, there are 463 steps to get to the top of the Duomo.

I was really excited to climb to the top because of the way the Duomo was constructed. There are actually two different domes, one that is seen from the outside and one that is seen from the inside. When you climb to the top, you are actually climbing steps that are in between the two domes. It is really neat to see how the two domes relate to each other, but it is also a bit claustrophobic.

We made it to the top, but did work up a little bit of a sweat. We were greeted with a brisk Tuscan breeze and a wonderful view of the city. We spent about 20 minutes on top of the cathedral, looking across the whole city, taking in the landscape and taking photos.

It was absolutely beautiful, and we were able to point out all the sites that we visited the previous days. We took lots of good photos as well.

After the easier climb down, we walked around a little bit of the city center, one last time. Then we stopped at our little café beside our hotel to get something to eat and use the internet.

We then walked to the train station and boarded our train to Venice. Our trip was only three hours, a little less than the train ride to Florence, and we had some good time to nap and read on the way.
We arrived in Venice and boarded the No. 1 vaporetto to cruise the Grand Canal on the way to St. Mark’s Square. The ride took about 30 minutes or so, and we were able to get a quick glimpse of the city. We stopped at St. Mark’s Square and were wowed. It is very big and wide. It seemed to be a lot bigger than most of the piazzas that we have seen so far.

Luckily our hotel is close-by. Literally right across the “street” from St. Mark’s Square. We are about a 30-second walk down the street and over a bridge to get to the piazza.

We were able to walk around a little bit tonight after we checked into the hotel and got settled. We found a nice café to eat dinner. Jessica had potato gnocchi and breaded pork chop, while I had meat lasagna and scuttlefish Venetian style with polenta.

We walked back to St. Mark’s and took a few photos and are now retiring to the hotel after a long couple of days running around. We are looking forward to sightseeing in a relaxed manner on the island of Venice. We will start tomorrow morning with St. Mark’s Basilica. Ciao!