New Feature: Chris' Excellent Adventures - Florence, Italy

My friends and family know me as an avid international traveler. Here is a map of the countries I have visited. It all started with a business trip to Holland in 1991, followed in 1992 by a pleasure trip to Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar, France and England. By August 1993, I was living in Belgium on a 4-year job transfer. Lucky me. That's when the travel bug hit me big time. Since then I have visited practically every country in Europe, as well as Egypt, India, Nepal, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. There are many more places I woule like to go really, really soon. But since I work, there is only so much travel you can squeeze in.

Anyhow, I have virtually thousands of pictures. They are doing no good sitting in albums at home, so I thought I would publish a few from time to time along with some anecdotes recounting the circumtances surrounding the picture.

It was really hard selecting a picture, but I'll start with these.

Time: October 2000
City: Florence, Italy
Site: Observation Platform - Florence Duomo (Cathedral)
Traveling With: Doug and Jenny T from Hartford, WI

We are into the second week of a three week self-guided driving vacation that took from Rome to Venice, Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Asissi, Sorrento, Pompeii, and back to Rome and Vatican City. The Catholic church is celebrating it Jubilee 2000, so there are lots and lots of tourist visiting Italy and making the pilgrimage to the sacred churches. Jenny decides to stay down at street level while Doug and I climb to the top of the dome of the cathedral for a spectacular bird's eye view of medieval Florence. Of course, there is no elevator, so we climbed and climbed the hundreds of steps to the top, admiring the murals painted inside the dome on our way up. Eventually, we got to the base of the dome where we went inside the dome itself.
Eventually we reached a staircase that curved upward along the inside curviture of the dome itself and then down some narrow passage ways until you reach a ladder that takes you up to the observation platform at the pinnacle of the dome. That's where Doug snapped this picture of me. Wow, what a view it was. This was actually my second time doing this. I just didn't want Doug to miss the photo op.