Arrived in Florence 5/5 after disembarking the ship – walking to the train station (6 blocks) – train to Rome – transfer to high speed train to Florence - walked 2 blocks to hotel.
http://www.hotelsempione.info/eng/default_eng.asp
Hotel Sempione is located right in the central area of Florence – a great location. Hotel is small, rooms are tiny, but it’s clean and the staff is friendly. Breakfast is included and is very, very good.
After checking in, we decided to do Rick Steves walking tour “the renaissance walk”. Starting point is the Duomo which is only a few blocks from the hotel. The Duomo is visible from all over the city and was built in the Middle Ages by architects who left it unfinished. It was built with a big hole in its roof, just waiting for a grand dome to cover it, but the technology needed to create such a dome had yet to be invented. No problemo. They knew that someone would soon be able to handle the challenge. In the 1400’s, the architect Filippo Brunelleschi was called on to finish the job. He capped the church Roman style, with a tall, self supporting dome as grand as the ancient Pantheon’s (which he had studied). He used a dome within a dome. His dome was built in only 14 years. The dome was the wonder of the age – a model for many domes to follow – from St. Peter’s to the US Capitol.
We continued to follow the tour using our MP3 player but took a wrong turn and found ourselves off the track of the tour. So, we vowed to review the guidebook, and take another crack at it on another day when we’re not so tired.
We had dinner at a cafe outside of our hotel - Pizza of course.
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