Firenze- 02 February 2009

Today was our last day in Firenze (which was definitely my favorite city that we saw in this whole trip). The first thing we did was climb Brunelleschi’s cupola of the Cathedral Santa Maria Del Fiore (the Duomo of Firenze) but in order to recount this experience I must first explain a little bit about how this dome was constructed. So for a brief period in time, Firenze was the capital of Italy, and they decided that they need the biggest church in Italy to celebrate this. Makes sense. So they go about building this gigantic church which was the largest church in the world until Milan and St. Peters, and then realize that it needs the largest dome in the world of which they have no idea how to construct. Obviously they can’t do it like the usually do, and build wooden supports to hold up the masonry until it is finished,,, one because that would take more wood than the entire region could supply,, and two because the masonry would be too heavy to stand up on its own in the end anyway. So they had a competition to see who should build it. Brunelleschi and Ghiberti ended up being the final contestants, and eventually Brunelleschi was given the job for a variety of reasons which we are not sure of their validity. Anyway, many people think he is crazy and he won’t really tell anyone how he is going to build the dome, he just convinces them that he can do it if they trust him. What he ends up doing is creating a double shell so that he uses less masonry and the outer shell is supported by the inner shell which is in turn supported by a drum wall the size of the pantheon below it. This drum was placed to resolve the loads before they hit the 4 major piers which finally distribute the force to the ground. SOOOOOOOOO… When you are climbing up the dome you climb up the space between the two shells,,, which gets progressively narrower and more slanted as you begin to reach the top. Overall it was a very exciting experience that would make a great action scene for a National Treasure film. Anyway, we made it to the top, had some decent views of Firenze despite the cloudy rainy weather. After this we headed to the train station and travelled to our next destination, Siena.

I feel bad for Siena because we were only there for one day, and it was pouring basically the entire time we were there, so we didn’t have the greatest experience with it. That plus the hotel roof was leaking onto peoples beds…. Anyway, once we got to Siena we went to what is said to be the most beautiful square in all of Italy, and I really liked its drainage system. Then we did some shopping in the rain and had a large group dinner at this quaint little restaurant right off the piazza which was absolutely delicious. One of our plates that he served us was pasta in a sauce which was like half tomato sauce half olive oil, and it was absolutely fantastic. And now I am craving it again.

~Heather