Il Duomo

The walk to the top of the Duomo is not easy.  Neither is paying the 8€ entry fee.  In fact, when I arrived at the halfway point, where you walk around the inside of the Dumo right up close to the Divine Comedy of a ceiling depicting sweet little baby Jesus, other holy people, and some pretty freaky hell-dwellers (the Italians, it appears, do not shy away from depicting human disembowelment, even in churches), I said to myself, "That's cool, but I could have seen it from the ground floor."  What I could not have seen from the bottom of the church was the view that followed.

From the top of the Duomo, Florence looks like a medieval painting.  I actually sighed when I saw it.  The clouds were parting and the butter cream and brick red patchwork quilt of Florence glowed in the intermittent sunlight.  The sky was the refreshed blue of a bird's first song after hatching its shell.  The hills were still veiled in fog and cloud; to the South, I could see buildings in the hills and the individually spiking cypress trees through the haze.

There are so, so many important Italian artists, and now I know why:  Italy is art and Italy makes us all artists.

Ché vista!
Maria