More Italy trip journal

We hit the streets of Florence with no plans and just as little time. I remember the city as cars, smog, rubbish bins, phone booths and tourist shop mannequins all blurring together beneath swirling clouds in a wide-open blue sky which, although obscured by the ancient buildings, I absorbed completely. To have finally left the train station and the underground mall which connected it to downtown and to finally be walking down the streets of Florence, Italy gave me a great sense of freedom and relief, even if the city itself wasn’t doing much for me.
We jogged past a gigantic famous building of some sort The Duomo, or something close to that, although I cannot describe with any sense of confidence since I hardly remember it. Someone snapped pictures. All I know is there were towers, it was probably too large to all fit a the camera viewfinder, which seems to suggest that I may have also snapped pictures as well, and I think it was painted in an interesting way. Upon learning that we were only in Florence for three hours, other travelers often asked, “did you at least see the Duomo (or whatever they called it)?” and I confidently assured them that we did. Although it was sort of like saying I’ve also seen Morocco. Which I may have seen from across the Mediterranean Sea while up in the Sierra Nevadas, because they say it’s possible, but I couldn’t tell you want it looked like, if I even saw it at all.
Our shutter-quick snapshot feet finally came to a full stop when our street unraveled into the open void of a giant plaza. Magnetically we were drawn to the cathedral at the end closest to us, where other tourists were gathered on the steps and at the door. A chat with the security guard revealed that we needed to pay eight euros to get in, and it would take about an hour to see the whole thing. All of us were centimo-pinching kids on a budget, so the four eight seemed a bit expensive, until we realized how much we’d spent on train tickets to just to get to Florence and decided that the price to actually see something in Florence was comparatively quite low. Even so, we left one spendthrift on the stairs as we made out way to the ticket booth.
Most of the cathedrals in Europe are dark, gaudy and guilt-gilded. It’s hard to escape the feeling of decadence, but in this one it was clear that our admission price went to keeping the sanctuary well-let, clean and relatively appealing. Sort of like a modern-day payment for penance, but without the pretense of salvation. There were shrines set up around the front with offer boxes and actual candles to light, unlike most of the electric night-light alter boxes in Granada.
More prominent, but without flickering candle light, were the secular shrines of this cathedral: the eternal resting place of the Italian Renaissance’s best and brightest. Michelangelo, Galileo, Dante, Machiavelli and other luminaries were buried in graves more or less built right into the cathedral wall, adorned with sculptures and Latin inscriptions. Galileo’s tomb was the oddest sight, as I seem to remember that he was imprisoned and basically killed by the Catholic Church, but I suppose it’s nice to know that they didn’t hate him forever. I wonder if his soul got absolved, too?
I didn’t know that Dante’s tomb was in the cathedral until I was standing in front of it, and I had a small literary freak-out. I’ve not read Dante himself, but I’ve read a lot of rad stuff one way or another inspired by The Inferno (Milton, Blake, C.S. Lewis), and let’s face it – the name Dante has a lot of pop to it. The words “Dante’s tomb” just sound cool.
After we’d sufficiently explored the corners and courtyards, admired the ceiling and the statues, we returned to the plaza to collect our missing member, and hit the streets of Florence once again, arriving at the train station three minutes after our train left.

NEXT TIME: DANTE’S TOMB!!!!!!!!!!!!