Firenze!

So, a detailed account of our class trip to Firenze Thursday through Saturday of last week! We took an early train out of Frascati, at 7:30 AM Thursday, and it turns out on that particular day, the transportation authorities were doing a crackdown on ticket checks. See, when you get a ticket for the train or bus or metro (subway), you don't have your ticket checked when you go on. But despite this, you can't take the chance of getting onto one of these modes of transportation without a ticket, because if they catch you during random ticket checks, you'll be fined anywhere from 50 to 150 euros. If you don't have the money on you in cold, hard cash, then they'll either drag you forcibly to the police station or, better yet even, to an ATM machine so you can withdraw the necessary amount to pay the fine.

So, this is the one day that poor Katie, our roommate, forgets her monthly train pass. She left it by accident in the back pocket of her jeans in the hotel room. So along comes the ticket lady, and Katie just gets ready to pay the fine (which was 50 euros, equivalent to about 80 or 90 dollars). This is looking like it'll be a really bad start to our class trip to Florence, and the ticket lady looks at her and tells her to come up to the front to pay the fine. So Katie leaves us to go to several cars in front of us, and Natasha, Mica and I just give each other anxious glances. But when she comes back, she informs us that she only had to pay the equivalent of a train ticket to Rome, 1 euro and ten cents, and that the lady believed that she really did forget her ticket. Blessings abound!

From Rome, we took the fast train (EuroStar) to Florence, and the landscape zipped by in a mere hour and half. The regular (slow) train takes about four hours to get there. We got to Florence around 10:30 in the morning, but we couldn't check into the hotel until 1:00. So we were free to wander around, get food and relax a bit before class officially started in the afternoon. We went to the archaeological museum of Florence first, saw some nice ancient Greek and Etruscan pottery and sculpture, and then visited two really nice cathedrals afterwards. The first was S. Croce, or the Holy Cross. This is an enormous Gothic cathedral, and the interior was spectacular--the tombs of many famous Florentines are there, including that of Michelangelo. Picture below (pulled from Internet search.



Next, we went to the Duomo, the largest and arguably the most important cathedral in Florence. This is basically the center of religious life there, and the interior of the cathedral is colossal. The distinguishing characteristic of the Duomo is its enormous cupola (the dome). After this, the class was done for the day, but we had the option of climbing up to the Duomo. But only three people went--my two roommates and myself. There was an admission charge to climb to the top, and we climbed some 460 extremely treacherous spiraling steps up to the top of the cathedral. See photo of what the stairs were like:



On the way, we were able to get a close up look on the interior of the dome, which is covered by staggeringly enormous and beautiful frescos of heaven and hell. See photo below of interior of dome:



And then we finally got to the top and were able to enjoy the highest view possible in Florence. One is literally surrounded by a sea of red-bricked roofs, and mountains fading away into the distance. It was absolutely beautiful and we stayed up there for perhaps just under a half hour before making the equally treacherous descent to the bottom. The next photo shows the Duomo, and we are precisely where the red brick of the dome ends toward the top, on the platform above that. It was just amazing.



Next post, all about Friday and Saturday!