Church in Florence

Florence's cathedral, and Brunelleschi's dome is the reason the city looks the way it does from every hill around it. The nave is free and surprisingly bare; the dome climb is ticketed, steep, 463 steps with no lift, and books out days ahead. Cover shoulders and knees. The complex ticket also covers the baptistery and the campanile.

The octagonal building facing the cathedral, older than it, with a ceiling of gold mosaics that most people miss because they are looking at the doors. Ghiberti's bronze Gates of Paradise on the east side are replicas; the originals are in the cathedral museum opposite. Twenty minutes, covered by the Duomo complex ticket.