Climbing the Duomo in Florence, Italy is similar to climbing the Empire State Building in New York. It’s very touristy and not many people who actually live here do it. But if you’re visiting Florence, it’s one of the most beautiful ways to see the city.
The Duomo is like a North Star in the middle of Florence. You can see it pretty much from anywhere. Every time I walked past it, the Duomo became more and more beautiful.
We had a few hours before our Tuscany wine tour to climb the Duomo. We didn’t do our research so we got in line at about 11:30 a.m., not realizing how long it would be! Or that we needed tickets ahead of time. You can’t buy tickets at the Duomo entrance, you have to buy them at a ticket office.
Fortunately, we were in line for about an hour so our friend Ricky was able to run to the ticket office and grab four tickets while we waited.
Unfortunately Chelsea is very sick again so she missed our climb up to the top. But it is over 400 steps and very steep with not much ventilation so it was best that she skipped it.
And of course we had to snap a selfie:
Manhattan to Roam 