This is a shot of the really magnificient Duomo in Firenze. It's
so beautifully restored on the front of this building. When you
go around to the sides, it's all dirty and black and you
appreciate the amazing job they did scrubbing away all the soot
from the industrial revolution. Giotto's Bell Tower is on the
right. We climbed up it (462 steps) and hopped down. It was a
really long way up.
This is the dome of the duomo, as seen from the bell tower. We
didn't climb to the top of the dome because the line was really
long.
This is the top of the tower. It gives you a great view of the
city, and you can wave to the people at the top of the dome.
Can you believe people graffitti on a bell tower 800 years old?
It was everywhere, too.
Naomi had way too much fun in the stairway of the bell tower.
Around the duomo are the Doors of Paradise. These are a copy, the
real ones are in a museum. They would corrode too much from the
pollution. The air quality here is not as bad as Bangkok, lets
say, but much worse than Southern California. All those
unregulated mopeds (And in SoCal, all those unregulated
Durangos!)
This guy was an American artist doing portraits in front of the
duomo, and he was clearly better than the 50 or so other guys
doing caricatures and portraits. He also charged 100,000 lire a
portrait ($60), while the going rate was around 40,000 lire
($25). The back of the little girl he just finished drawing is in
the foreground.