After walking around it and even going inside to stand under it yesterday, we decided this morning was our best chance to actually climb Brunelleschi’s dome. We got there just as they were opening the doors and prepared for a long climb (463 steps). The first part was a series of small sets of stairs like you would climb around the inside edge of a square tower. After a larger landing, we switched to tight spiral stairs not more than two or two and a half feet wide. At one point our path took us out onto a ledge inside the cathedral where we could get a better look at the fresco painted on the ceiling. There are actually two domes, an interior one and an exterior one. Most of the way there were various sorts of windows, some larger ones and some very small, to provide additional light in the small space. The last part of our climb was actually through the space in between the two domes, slanting sideways as we went before moving to the inner dome itself. The last set of stairs were nearly vertical, and then we were finally at the top.

After being inside stone tunnels, the sun was extremely bright. We took a few moments to catch our breath and down some water before taking in the panoramic views of Florence. From up there, we could see every site we’d already visited and most of the rest of Florence and beyond.

I don’t think this is the worst climb we’ve ever attempted by a longshot; the Kansas state capital dome still wins that contest. However, there were some small spaces here that were pretty claustrophobic. Amber doesn’t like heights so portions were intense for her, especially coming back down. The worst part for me was early on the way down. The stairs are built right into the outside of the inner dome, which wouldn’t be so bad, but there wasn’t enough room for me to stand up straight. I had to either hunch really far forward or lean back awkwardly as I descended.

Back on solid ground at the bottom, we headed back to our hotel to check out. Before we left, Amber decided to check the booking confirmation for our next hotel in Venice and noticed that the days and dates did not match up. That was when I noticed that the year on the printout was 2011. Crap.

This was a reservation I’d already had issues with (they originally offered two nights but only listed dates for one), so I wanted to be doubly sure it was correct. I read back through the emails we had exchanged, and all of the details in the final email were good (dates were correct, number of nights correct, but no days mentioned). I decided we better pay the fee to make a phone call and be sure that they were expecting us today and not next year. Luckily, everything was fine and they even had a note about our arrival time I had sent a few days ago. For this particular reservation, I had to fill out a secure form online to send over credit card details to hold the reservation. I must have messed up the dates there, even though they had already marked down our correct reservation on their books. With a crisis averted, we headed for the train station to leave Florence behind.