463 stairs up to cupola (Il Duomo)
Yes, we made it to the tops!
We got the entrance tickets yesterday which are good for 24 hours. It rained all night last night, which made our sleep well. I woke up at 5am to check emails, but there wasn't any emergency emails that I need to reply quickly! I checked my Facebook as usual and replied to some comments.
After having breakfast at the hotel, we walked to the Duomo. The line has been in the morning, we joined the line to the duomo (copula) at 10:45am. The line moved slowly but surely. After an hour finally we entered the gate. To get into the stairs we have to validate our ticket.
We climbed and climbed with many people. There is a small path to the top. We have to move on, since there is no way to go back once we decided to climb the stairs. There is a sign in front of the gate saying, "those who have heart disease are not recommended to go up".
It took us about forty minutes to go up with a few stops to let other people to go down. In the middle of the climb where the section to go up and down, there was a lady to organize the traffic. We stopped in the junction for a while till people made their way down.
When we got to the top, we were out of breath. We walked around to see the views from the four compass directions. We took many pictures of course. We sat down in some spots to enjoy the views and to admire the glory of the past. The bell tower looked so clear from where we were at that moment.
The copula or the duomo was built for certain purposes which I don't know, but now the legacy of the duomo has provided prosperity for the community around those megalomania monuments. Imagine, everyday people come here and curious to see what inside the church and what we can see from the tower. It cost 10 Euro to visit four monuments in 24 hours. You can only use your ticket once in each monument. Once you bought the ticket, you can keep it till 6 days as long as you didn't validate it.
Those four monuments which include in the ticket are: Cathedral di Santa Maria del Fiore, the Cupola, the Campanile, and the last one I forgot the name it is being under renovation.
After feeling enough seeing the views from the top, we decided to go down and gave a chance for the others to go up. The stairs are enough for two people to pass by up and down. But sometimes we have to stop in certain points to let people go first.
We got downstairs at around 1pm, I felt hungry but we didn't have lunch but instead we entered a church where we can just sit down admiring the paintings in the ceiling of the duomo.
