We then walked up to tourism's ground zero, the Duomo. This was the only place reminiscent of my previous trips to Florence, jam packed with tourists, mostly eating gelato and sitting all over the plaza wherever there was space. The photos in this entry are of the oldest part of the Duomo complex, the Baptistry. The baptistry was founded in the 7th century, although every generation embelished it so it's quite a sensory overload. It must have been even more so every new year's day, when all the babies born in Florence the previous year were assembled in this cavernous echo chamber to get baptized and presumably scream at the top of their lungs. Heaven.

The baptistry is most famous for its bronze doors, one seet of which is pictured here. In 1401 the city held a famous competition to design the last remaining set of doors, won by Ghiberti. He then spent 27 years on the doors, and are considered the first art work of the Renaissance and a key influence for Michelangelo and other subsequent Renaissance painters. Although again it's hard to really see the difference, because everyone knows this story these doors are swamped with the tourist paparazzi, while the others,which were equally famous in their day, are ignored. For my undereducated money, the gold mosaics in the ceiling are the real stunners.