Today was intended to be a museum day. We tried to go to the Uffizi gallery but it was closed. We then walked to the gallery of Accademia where Michelangelo’s David is housed but it was also closed. We ended up spending the day in the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella. There were some cool paintings in their collection. It was a rainy day so we were in no hurry to leave the shelter of the Basilica. We headed back towards our hostel and decided since the weather seemed to be clearing up a little that we should pay to enter the dome of the Duomo where we could get a nice view of the city. This ended up being an incredibly good idea. The ascent to the dome was very interesting. We climbed over 400 steps, traveling through small passageways and up some very unique (steep or arch-like)stair cases. As we were climbing there were a few tiny windows though which we could see that the sky was really clearing up. This excited us, and we climbed faster. Finally reaching the top, we had a really awesome view of the city. It was perfect timing- the sky now had patches of blue and the sun was about to set. We watched a beautiful sunset over Firenze (Florence) and took a bunch of pictures. It was a fantastic ending to an otherwise slightly disappointing rainy day.
