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Last night on our way home, Hannah and I noticed that it was an especially foggy and dreary night and that it gave the city a kind of creepy, eerie quality. So we broke out the tripod, dismissed our concern about looking like tourists, and braved the creepiness for some pictures. Here are a few.

There was a comment here about more pictures of/from the Duomo in Florence. Here’s a few. One of them is a view down the precipitously steep stairs at the very top of the dome, and the rest are some shots from its windows.

We took a trip to Florence over the weekend and had a great time. Florence is beautiful, and it has some of the most amazing art and architecture that you’re bound to see. Here are some high/low-lights of the trip (mostly high).

We took the train for the first time since we’ve been here, which was kind of exciting. Given the lack of dependence on the train that we have in the states, it was exciting to take a ride on it again, especially given the degree of stress that air travel seems to cause everybody, and myself especially, in the recent years. On the train, our stress was limited to the fact that we didn’t really know what we were doing, which was dissipated relatively quickly and shouldn’t be a problem again. It was also our first chance to see some of Italy other than Venice itself, and while it wasn’t the kind of train that goes through an Alpine pass or anything like that, it was fantastic to see something new. I found myself thinking that after the completely alien landscape of Venice, being in a place less completely bizarre finally felt like we were in Europe, rather than on another planet. Here’s a photo from the train.

The city itself was completely beautiful, other than the fact that it rained almost the whole time. After the lousy weather we’ve been having in Venice, a little rain wouldn’t have been so bad, except that it was really kind of a lot of rain. Sadly, the weather on the way down was completely beautiful until about the time that the train started to slow down, and then it poured for the rest of the time, other than a 5-6 hour stretch on Sunday during which it was mysteriously beautiful again.

Having not been there since I was a kid, I was pretty surprised by how relatively small the city center is, especially considering the amount of truly amazing things packed into it. By far, the most impressive thing to me was the Duomo, which is just breathtaking. I was especially interested, since I just read this book, which tells the story of the construction of the dome, still the largest masonry dome in the world. It really feels like it’s the biggest building in the world when you stand right next to it.

We paid a few extra Euros to walk up stairs to the very top of the dome, which was exciting because you get to actually be inside the structure of the thing. It has an inner and outer shell, and the stairway is in between them, which allows you to actually see how it was built (hint: very, very sturdy). When we finally got to the top, however, there was a person there to tell us that if lightning were to strike, there was a 99.9% chance it would hit the dome, so we shouldn’t go outside. I still don’t understand how it’s supposed to be unsafe to stand outside but totally OK to stand at the bottom of a ladder about six feet away from outside, as we were at the time, but given the warning and the pouring rain, we stayed inside anyway. Here are some pictures of part of the exterior, and from inside looking up at the dome.

Next to the cathedral is the Baptistry, which is known for its bronze doors, built by Ghiberti, which are also pretty amazing.

We also got to see Michelangelo’s David and got dirty looks from the security guard for trying to take a picture of it. This was funny to me because it was outside for the first 375 years of its existence, and taking a picture couldn’t possibly have any effect on it whatsoever. Anyway, there are plenty of pictures online.

The Uffizi museum, which has just about every Renaissance painting you’re ever heard of, is also in Florence, along with enough other museums to make your feet hurt really badly by the end of a weekend there. Here’s a few of the other pictures we took over the weekend.

Finally, here’s a picture of the sign on the bar that was across the street from our hotel. I’ve tried pretty hard and can’t come up with a single good reason to name your bar the ‘Spleen Cafe’, unless you just want tourists to laugh and go there because it’s funny.

Here are just a few more pictures I took over the last week. The rapid-fire picture taking of the first few days here has slowed down a bit since it’s started to get a bit more “normal” to us, but Hannah and I are going to spend the weekend in Florence, so I’m sure it will resume shortly. And writing this reminds me that we’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of going to the attractions here, to the extent that city itself isn’t the entire attraction.

This here is a hospital. Yes, a hospital. I think they decided that with an incredibly ornate church/government building every two blocks, they might as well start making the hospitals look like this as well.

A few days ago I posted a picture of a church with a tower that was leaning like mad, but you couldn’t quite tell. I think it’s easier to tell with this one, although possibly not to the degree that you can in person. I imagine there’s some pretty cheap real estate in the immediate vicinity.

And here’s a few more.

1. A sign that I thought was funny in St. Mark’s Square. “Don’t swim in the canal”, “Don’t go around naked”, etc. Tourists must be real stupid.
2. Rooftops from the window at the Doge’s Palace.
3. Your average everyday beautiful building. (Not sure what it is. Even less sure how to find it again)

Here’s a relateively random collection of pictures we’ve taken over the last few days. My newsflash for today is that yesterday I left the house and didn’t immediately become hopelessly lost. This is very exciting stuff.

It’s been a little wacky for me to get used to the fact that everything, everything is done by boat here. So, every time I see a new thing (garbage boat, police boat, taxi boat, etc) I think it’s the craziest thing ever. Here’s one of my favorites, though… the UPS boat. I don’t know why I think this is so funny.

There’s a thing that occurs here in the Winter called aqua alta (high water), where the canals flood in some of the lower-lying streets. This seems decidedly unpleasant to me, and I’m glad it hasn’t happened yet while we’ve been here. Apparently they put out platforms for you to walk on when this happens, and here is a picture of some of them. The sidewalks are already packed enough with people that I can’t imagine squeezing them all onto these things.

Gondalas (and gondoliers) are, of course, everywhere. Here’s a few pictures of them. This last on cracks me up… there were about 15 gondalas packed into this tiny canal, and the gondoliers were all yelling back and forth to each other. So much for it being romantic.

Here are a couple of Rialto bridge-related pictures. It’s one of three bridges that cross the Grand Canal, and the area around it is a huge tourist center but also has a huge, fantastic open-air fish and vegetable market. The prices for produce here are amazingly low, which is great. Broccoli for 2.00 euros a kilo is like $1.50 a pound. I think it was $5.99 at Whole Foods the last time I checked.

I’ll put up some more photos in a bit.