When we got to the cathedral, a line of people stretched away from the cathedral and wound around the piazza. Frankly, it was too long to be worth it. But, we had bought Firenze Cards, red plastic credit card sized cards that get you into museums “free” and (bonus!) let you go to the front of the line.
So we walked past all those people to the red Firenze Card sign. We scanned our cards and were waved in just like that. We walked thru a door and began to climb.
And so now what do I tell you? We climbed and climbed.
At times it was more like scrambling, the steps being so narrow and so steep that it was tempting (and indeed in some places necessary) to go on all fours. There were rock spiral stairs going way up.
There were stairs running between the inner and outer skins of the dome with port-hole windows periodically letting in the Tuscan light.
There were stairs upon stairs. And more windows looking out over the city.
When we got almost to the top, we had to wait for a long string of climbers descending back down. We stood aside, pressing our bodies to the stone walls as climber after climber squeezed past us. And when finally it was our turn again, we scrambled the last few steep steps thru a hatch that opened out onto this.
We wandered around and around the walkway, looking north and west and east and south and then doing it all again. We sat with our backs to cool stone and looked out on the city. We took pictures of people who were traveling together. People took pictures of us.
We looked down on the piazza at people milling around on the cobblestone streets, tables being set for dinner and artists selling their watercolors. We looked over at other climbers standing at the summit of Giotto’s Campanile. And on the hour, the cathedral bells in that tower began ringing.
We were, frankly in no hurry.
We stood. We sat. We walked. We held our faces into the breeze. We peered into the hills where Tuscany beckoned. Distant magical places.
And as we were up there, the sun sank low in the west, and the shadow of Il Duomo reached out over the city.
While we were up there, in what now seems mere moments, all of Florence and Tuscany was ours. And then… it was time go go back down.
