Around Florence

On the Monday morning, we had tickets for Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral, and the Duomo. Maybe we were a bit slow or the information wasn't as clear as it could have been, but we didn't realise we had tickets to climb the Duomo until we were starting climbing. There are 463 steps to the top.

A well deserve pause.

It starts with a square spiral staircase, which was reasonably roomy. But I was still happy to pause and look at the statues. On the way up we also went around the lower inside part of the dome.

Looking down on the church

Looks unpleasant

Then the stairs become a never-ending (or feels like) spiral staircase. I managed to stop a few times to take a few photos (and a breathe).

The lat part was a steep staircase and ladder to the top. The view was worth it.

Shadow of the Dome

At the top

Over the edge

For some of the way down it was the same route as the way up, which was interesting when other people were coming up. There were some close encounters. We also went along the upper inner part of the dome, and got close up to the paintings.

When we got down, we headed to a cafe in the plaza around the cathedral for a much needed rest.

Our tickets included entry to the main part of the cathedral, the baptistry, and the bell tower. The queue to get into the cathedral was too long to bother but there was no queue for the baptistry, so we popped in. A baptistry is just a smaller chapel and this one was older than the cathedral. And the bell tower was another 414 steps so we decided against that one.)

We did a bit of shopping before dropping our bags off at the hotel and headed towards Santa Croce and the other markets for a little more shopping.

Neptune

More ice-cream

Santa Croce is a lovely church and is the burial place of Galileo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli.

Not sure how he is but he is not happy.

doing restoration.

Michelangelos tomb.

Galileos tomb.

Galileo with his telescope.

A Henry Moore

We headed back to the central market for a late lunch again but didn't quite make it in one go. Cannoli was on our 'must do' list and this seemed like the perfect time. 

Pistachio and chocolate

We finally made it to the central market (thankfully with minimal badgering from the street market) and up stairs for food. Again a lovely person came and brought us wine.

Lunch

We spent the afternoon chilling out before our last nights dinner.

So pretty

So tasty

At this point, we really did not want to go home.

San Gimignano and Pisa

After lunch at the farmhouse, the next stop was San Gimignano, a medieval hill top fortressed town. There used to be over 70 towers as the rich would build them to live in to show how rich they are. The taller and the more you have, the richer you are. (So something haven't changed.) Most towns in Tuscany did this but San Gimignano is one of the only where most (~40) have survived. 

Another view over Tuscany

 Entrance to the town.

from the top

The town has another claim to fame - it is the home of the world's best Gelateria (won twice in the last 10 years). And it was good. I tried the eggnog and it was seriously good. 

Word's best ice-cream - eggnog

Town square center.

Towers.

The final stop of the day was Pisa to see the famous leaning tower. It was getting dark when we got there but the view was still good.

The baptistry.

Cathedral.

The leaning tower.

Really does lean

The cathedral is oddly quite a distance from the town centre so there wasn't much to do there other than take some photos and visit the gift shop, where they had the usual array of tacky tourist bits but also some very nice things.

We got back to Florence at about 7pm and were knackered so just went to a restaurant round the corner from our hotel, which was so good. To be fair, every where we went for food was amazing. If I lived in Italy, a diet would be needed.