"Architecture in general is frozen music." -Friedrich von Shelling

Our trip to Italy was essentially divided into two main parts:  our time in the Tuscan countryside, and our trip to the coastal areas of Anacapri and Positano.  Since we needed a car to get from one Tuscan hilltown to another, but needed to AVOID driving a car on the steep, winding, cliff-side roads of Capri and Anacapri, we established Florence as our rental car pick-up and drop-off site. We took the train in to Florence from Milan at the start of our trip to pick up our car, drove off into the rural region, then drove it back in to drop it off before exploring Florence and then taking a train to the Southern coastal areas.

We only had about a day and a half in Florence, which was perfect for us since I wanted to explore that city a bit, but didn't want to give up much time in either the countryside or by the water in Southern Italy.   We also used this stop in Florence to wash everything we'd worn so far on our trip, so we could essentially start over in the wardrobe department.  This allowed us to pack light (only 1 small rolling carry-on each, in addition to a backpack and a shoulder bag for the whole trip!), which was crucial for how often we were hopping on and off planes and trains, wedging ourselves and all of our stuff into tiny cars, and lugging all of our baggage up about 200 stairs in Positano.  If you plan a 2-week trip but need to pack light like this, I highly recommend building a trip to a laundromat into your plans at the midway point. It was so nice to have only clean clothes and a wide range of choices when heading into the second half of our vacation.

Anyway, I'm way off track... back to Florence. :)  So of course there was a duomo, and of course we went into that duomo. It was actually one of the prettiest (externally, anyway) cathedrals we'd encountered during our trip, so I was quite happy to let Raja embrace all of the historical trappings that is an Italian duomo, while I snapped photographs and walked around the entire structure. 

The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore's (English: Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower) brick dome was the largest in the world up until the development of more modern structural materials, and today retains its status as the largest brick dome ever constructed.

The facade is covered in these pink and green marble panels bordered by white trim, and the amount of detail in almost every panel is stunning!

Gorgeous, right? We did go inside but the interior just wasn't as visually stunning as the exterior, so in order to keep things manageable from a photograph standpoint, we edited and uploaded only the photos from the outside.

After we explored the duomo, we took some time to stroll the city streets and just take in the culture. Florence had so much to offer in terms of museums, shops, delis, gelaterias, restaurants... The list just goes on and on, and it made me wish I'd done more research and maybe allowed for a little bit more time to explore interesting shops, try amazing restaurants, and seek out the best gelato. Sadly, you can only research so much for a trip, so I didn't plan out Florence in detail. Our strolling around yielded us plenty things to see and do, luckily... There's something interesting around every corner!

One thing that struck me was the charm present in the buildings and streets themselves. Almost every street looked like a postcard, and the buildings were exactly what I'd imagined when I'd tried to imagine what Florence might look like. We just wandered around and got lost in the streets.

Since Raja's dad is an architect, Raja's early travels often included views of famous architectural landmarks and marvels, and he has this ability to understand and explain the fundamentals behind how things are built and why they have to be built certain ways. Since we've traveled quite a bit together, I've learned just how many types of bridges there are, why certain materials are used for certain bridges but not others, and what provides the support in each different kind of bridge. Needless to say, the bridges in Florence were architectural pieces he wanted to see in person.

Even on a cloudy day, the bridges and the Arno river were stunning sights. I wish we'd been here a couple more days so we could hopefully catch the views during a sunny day, but even in this overcast setting, I still wasn't disappointed.

After another half day of exploration and some shoe shopping, we were on our way out of Florence, headed down to the coast to explore the vertical village of Positano, and relax in Anacapri. Florence was quick, but worth it - and proved to be much more than our rental car pick-up and drop-off site. :)