When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Limoncello: Firenze

The Baptistry doors

by Jo Anne

Recently we did some traveling away from Positano. Our first stop was Florence and the first place we visited within the city was the Duomo, the soaring church dome that symbolizes the proud Renaissance period. Sorry, I think that was a regurgitation of my Rick Steves' audio guide. ;)

We were standing in line waiting to buy tickets to climb up into the Duomo when someone at the information booth took a look at Samantha's little legs and said "You do realize it's 462 steps up to the top." Normally I would have been concerned as well. I hate to say it but our girls are occasionally "wimps" about hiking and climbing. The difference is we have been living on a cliff for two months. It is 354 steps up to our apartment from the town center. I told him I didn't think it would be a problem. We bought our two tickets and started up. We have become a two ticket family. We used to buy three tickets or even four depending upon the age requirements for entry. At some point on this trip though, we were trying to decide if we needed to buy Ella a bus ticket when a man working the counter asked us her age. We told him she was seven. Children five years old and under rode free. He said to us, "You're in Italy. Say she's five!". Ever since then, Ella has been five at the ticket booths. So today with our two tickets, we followed the girls up through the ancient, narrow, spiraling staircase. I began to feel a bit claustrophobic towards the end and could barely keep up with them. I followed their giggles. Before reaching the top we came to the point at which there is walkway that circles underneath the dome. It's amazing because you can get a closeup view of the fresco on the ceiling. The scene depicts judgement day with sinners being pulled down into a fiery monstrous pit and others floating up towards heaven. It frightened the girls and sparked a lot of questions. For me, I started contemplating our two ticket status. That's a white lie..right? One more staircase and we had reached the top. The view from the Duomo is unforgettable. I had been there 18 years ago with my parents and I still remembered it well. The red tiled roofs stretch out in all directions and at their end, in the distance, you can see the start of the Tuscan countryside. We took some time to soak it in.

View from the Duomo

The Last Judgement

Big Basilica, Little Girls

Posing with David.

Palazzo Vecchio

Perseus with the head of Medussa.

Outside the Uffizi Gallery

Fountain of Neptune

Next was the Palazzo Vecchio, the Piazza della Signoria with its statues, and then the Uffizi gallery. From what I've heard, the crowds can be unbearable in the Uffizi during the summer months but on this Tuesday in November it was not a long wait. I had book, a map, and a Rick Steves' audio guide loaded up and ready to take us through the paintings. I lost the guide book and map to Ella in room number one. She was so excited and told me she wanted to see every painting (this was unexpected!). I'm not sure if she was inspired by the intellectual nature of Hermoine Granger (She has been very into the Harry Potter books lately. In fact, I think I might have detected a very slight British accent from her at one point.) or if it was more like a treasure hunt for her. She had the book and a map and she needed to find those particular paintings that had been singled out and described. Whatever the reason, I was amazed at her curiosity. At the end, I suddenly couldn't find her and had to backtrack looking for her. She was in a room of portraits, a room that Steve and I had walked through without much notice, with our eyes glazed over after having been there for almost three hours. She was circling the room, reading each of the descriptions and then looking up at the portraits. I never imagined I would be saying this to her but I had to ask "Would it be OK if we left the museum soon? I'm really hungry.". Thankfully, she agreed.

We bought Ella and Samantha little sketch books at the museum's gift shop and they filled them with their own versions of some of the paintings. I got permission to put a few up here.