Thursday Afternoon, Climbing the Campanile
When we got back to the Piazza del Duomo, I noticed that the afternoon light would be perfect to get photos of the cupola of the basilica from the top of the bell tower (campanile.)
So we decided to go ahead and climb to the top of the tower now instead of waiting until Friday afternoon, another 414 steps to climb!
If you look at photos of the campanile, you will see that there are some larger windows to get photos from than there are on the cupola.
The next few photos are views from the tower as we climbed.
In both the cupola and campanile, there are many places where you can stop and get out of the way to catch your breath so you do not get in the way of other climbers.
The Battistero di San Giovanni (Baptistery.)
The cupola of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore.
People on top of the cupola with the lantern in the background.
The lantern on top of the cupola.
Here are some views inside the campanile.
More views from the campanile as we climbed.
The cupola from the top of the campanile.
Yes, we made it to the top. Between the cupola and the campanile it was a lot of steps to climb in one day, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.
The Battistero di San Giovanni (Baptistery) in the Piazza del Duomo.
Just one of many places where renovation was going on.
A close-up of some of the staging being used for the ongoing renovations.
A better view of the Piazza della Republica.
We will have dinner there tonight.
In Europe, the ground floor is the Ground Floor, and the next floor up
is the First Floor. So the next floor up from that is the Second Floor,
which in the US would be called the Third Floor.
This photo from the top of the campanile shows where our room
was located.
Another couple of photos from the campanile.
Search for travel books about Italy at Amazon.com: