Home of the Renaissance

With all of us fully recovered we headed to Florence next. Florence is the absolute mecca for Renaissance art. When I was there eight years ago, we were in such a rush, that we were in the Uffizi gallery for about 45 minutes which is an absolute crime against nature. I was determined to see it properly this time. We ended up getting in without waiting in line and having a personal two hour tour of the most important and influential art of the renaissance. It was great. Botticelli, Lippi, Giotto, DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Rafael, and Caravaggio. Priceless, beautiful works of art that I was overjoyed to finally get to spend some quality time with. Okay, I'll try to stop nerding it up.
The next day we had a walking tour and saw a lot of the city including Pointe Vecchio, a large bridge over the Arno River. It is the only bridge in Florence to survive world war II, and is a very interesting place, with little shops build right off of it. We also visited Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore and Brunelleschi's Duomo. I later climbed the 400+ stairs to the top, getting a great view of the frescoes inside the dome, the architecture of the dome itself and an absolutely incredible view of the whole of Florence. It was truly unbelievable and the best six Euros I spent. I felt no sway, no shudder, no hint of instability as I stood 375 feet in the air on a 37,000 ton dome that was raised in 1436 without the use of wooden scaffolding. Sweet. It was here I learned that when you're alone, the best way to get a picture of yourself is to ask someone who has a more expensive camera than yours to take your picture. 1. they won't steal your camera because they already have a better one. 2. they probably know what they're doing.
We also saw Dante's house, and went inside la Basilica di Santa Croce where we saw great sculpture and the graves of Michaelangelo and Galileo. We also visited the Duomo museum where we saw the original golden "gate of paradise" baptistery doors completed by Ghiberti in 1422 after 21 years of work.