“You can go shopping anywhere,” said Dani.
“Um, it’s Italy. Hellooo,” mimicked Jae.
Lou and I threw each other a look. Trouble in paradise? Maybe the two of them spending some time apart was a good thing.
“Are you guys going to the group dinner?” asked Lou. She was braver than I was—I was steering clear of the firing line.
Surprisingly, they both answered in the affirmative. “Sure, that sounds good,” from Dani and, “Yeah, why not?” from Jaelee.
“Lou? Should we go too?” I asked.
“I don’t mind.”
“Great!” I said with far more enthusiasm than I felt. Maybe these were mid-tour blues and we all just needed a break from each other. Maybe dinner together was a bad idea. Oh well, too late now. I decided I’d find Craig and Jason and the boys and make sure they joined us. Buffers.
***
“Oh, my heck. Three hours? Three hours?!” Lou did not react well to the sign posted at the end of the massive queue for the Duomo.
“Wait here.” I wanted to make sure it was the correct queue and walked to the head of it. Fortunately, it was the queue to go to the top of the dome, and there was no way in hell I was doing that.
Sarah had told me what it entailed: hundreds of steps up a narrow spiral staircase, then going inside the outer and inner domes up a narrower staircase to get to the roof, while people were coming down the same stairs! It was a claustrophobe’s nightmare. Even Sarah said she’d felt a little faint and she’s usually fine with things like that.
I needed to find the queue for the church itself. I saw a small group of people crowded around a young Italian woman and could hear the jabbering American accents from fifteen feet away. I surreptitiously made my way over and eavesdropped. It was exactly what I needed to know.
“Right,” I said, a little breathless from my jog back to Lou. “We don’t need to line up.”
“Really?’
“Really. This is to go up inside the cupola to the roof. We go into the church over there.” I led her away from the queue and spilled the other nugget from my eavesdropping. “It’s even free—they can’t charge to go inside a church. It will probably be crowded, but at least we’ll get to see it.”
I grabbed Lou’s hand and led her through the multitude of people to the other side of the immense structure. When we got to the correct entrance, I stopped still and dropped her hand.
“What’s wrong?” asked Lou, impatience clear on her face.
“Look, Lou. It’s incredible.” I peered up at the cathedral, at its intricate marbled façade and the enormous terracotta-tiled dome.
“We’re in Florence, Cat,” she said after a few moments.
“Yep. We’re in Florence. I can’t believe how massive this is.”
She grinned at me. “C’mon, let’s go in.”
When we emerged about half an hour later, my neck was sore from staring at the ceiling. I hadn’t known about the incredible fresco under the dome. I heard a nearby guide say it was called The Last Judgement. It was extraordinary, with six tiers and hundreds of figures depicting heaven and hell and everything in between. Most of the time I was looking up, I was wondering how they’d built scaffolding that high five hundred years ago.
“Oh, my heck. That was incredible. I can’t believe I’ve been to the Duomo.” Lou was flushed, and I wasn’t sure if it was the excitement or that the cathedral had been crowded and quite warm.
“Are you Catholic?” I asked. I hadn’t seen her wear a cross, but that didn’t mean anything.
“No, Christian, yes, but not Catholic. Still, it is one of the greatest churches in the world, and I’m just … wow … this trip. Sainte-Chapelle, now this. And on Friday, St. Peter’s!”
I’m not religious, but I was also enjoying the landmark churches. They impressed me in a multitude of ways—architecturally, historically, and especially artistically.
Duomo
“Hey, thanks for figuring out that we didn’t need tickets.”
“Of course.”
“I feel like an idiot for not knowing. I mean, I’ve wanted to come here for so long, you’d think I’d do some research. You know, like logistics! Geez, Louise.”
“Hey, it’s no problem. Don’t be so hard on yourself. We got to see inside—that ceiling!”
“I know, right?”
“Now, you said Piazza della Signora?”
“Signoria.”
“Right. Lead the way.”
She pulled out her phone and frowned a little as she searched the pins on her Google map. She lifted her head to get her bearings, then declared, “This way.” She sounded confident and this time it was me following Lou through the crowd. I’d had no idea Florence would be so overrun with tourists—in October. It seemed busier than Paris.
***
The afternoon and early evening flew by in a whirlwind of piazzas and statues and more untenable queues. There was no way we’d get inside the Uffizi that afternoon. We’d have to settle for a postcard of The Birth of Venus, and Lou looked a little deflated. “It just means you have to come back. I mean, this tour is ridiculous—less than a day to explore Florence?”
“You booked it.” She cocked her head at me.
“So did you.”
“Well, I’m glad I did, because I got to meet you and Dani and Jaelee. It’s corny, but it’s true.”
“It’s not corny, it’s sweet. Right, we’ve got about forty-five minutes before dinner and we still haven’t walked across the fancy bridge.”
She laughed—it was at me, I could tell. “Ponte Vecchio. Old Bridge. How can you not know that? It’s, like, as famous as the Eiffel Tower.”
“Bollocks it is. I bet you every adult in England would know the Eiffel Tower from a photo, but would have no idea where Old Bridge was, or even what it was.”
She sighed in exasperation. “Can you spout lies and walk at the same time?” She walked away and I ran to catch up—her stride was much longer than mine.
“Hey!”
“Hey nothing. Hurry up.” Mama Bear Lou was turning on her cub.
***
“And this!” said Jaelee. She pulled a red leather handbag out of a carry bag—six others were shoved under her chair at the restaurant.
“Well, that’s gorgeous,” I admitted. “Let me see it.” I reached across the table and took the bag from her. I smelled it. “Ahh, divine. What is it about leather?”
“I don’t like that smell. It just smells like dead animal to me,” said Dani, her nose scrunching up.
“You ordered the veal,” Jaelee retorted.
“So?”
“Well, isn’t that a little hypocritical?”
“How so? I mean, I wear leather. I just don’t like the smell.”
“Here you go, Jae,” I said handing the bag back across the table. I wished I hadn’t said anything.
“So, how was the walking tour, Dani?” asked Lou, brightly. I sensed she was tiring of our bickering bus-mates too.
“Yeah, it was okay. I mean, Jason and the guys didn’t end up going, but there was this old church, Santa Croce, and that was cool. And we saw Ponte Vecchio, like you did, and we went past the warthog at the markets …”