Climbing the 500 Steps of the Tower at Duomo, Florence

Before we left Florence for Assis, we did do one thing that was really cool - climbing the steps of the Campanile Bell Tower at Duomo.

We only had the morning here in Florence, so we made sure we went to visit the Duomo which was just a few minutes’ walk from our hotel. Morning starts early in Italy; the sky starts getting bright around 5:30am and by the time it is 10ish, you could really feel the heat and scorching power of the sun.

Candle stands in the church

We visited the beautiful church and then

 climbed up the Campanile Bell Tower which has a narrow staircase made up of about 500 steps. The admission charge to climb to the top of the tower was 8 Euros / person.

I, in particular just loved walking these steps. By accident, I discovered that walking up steps did wonder to my aching hamstrings.  So I took every opportunity to walk these steps.

 The steps were narrow and deep, at times, only 1 person could go through so we had to negotiate our way with other climbers before we continued. 

The View Through one Those Peek Holes in the Tower

 As we climbed higher, we were able to peek through a little opening inside the tower and marvel at the clarity that we could see much of Florence and its immediate area.  

View of Florence after we climbed up the 500 steps to the Bell Tower

We huffed and puffed our way higher and higher in the steamy heat taking breaks at each platform available. The heat was intense and we were sweating like pigs. Some older people were not having an easy time.


Finally we reached the top of the tower and from that vintage point we could see Florence all around us in 360 degrees. 

Florence - Looking through one of the windows

  



Looking from the top of the Bell Tower, we noticed that all the buildings below were quite uniform in the style and construction.  No modern buildings were in sight. There must be some very strict building codes in certain part of the city limiting the construction of new buildings.






 We were glad that at our age, we could still climb all the way to the top without great difficulty; once when we got there we had the feeling of exhilaration of being on top of everything.

With God's blessing, we may be able to walk the Camino in Spain again!

S. & R.T. 

Our Third Day in Florence