Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and the Duomo

Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, The Duomo

One of the things I recommend the very most when visiting Florence, Italy, is climbing the Duomo.  The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore was built beginning in 1296.  It is located on the Piazza del Duomo.  There are 463 steps to climb the dome.  There is not an elevator.  The website warns against climbing the Duomo if you are claustrophobic, so keep that in mind.  I am terrified of heights, and there are definitely some scary parts as far as heights are concerned, but I still 100% recommend climbing the dome!  You can watch a video of our dome climb here:  Climbing the Duomo

The route up the dome is separate from the route down, except for one very short part near the top when you are going from the enclosed dome climb out into the open air of the terrace on top of the dome.  There are hand rails on the scariest parts of the climb, as well as all the way around the exposed area outside the dome.  There are two times that you are able to walk along the inside of the dome and look down into the Cathedral.  There is plexi-glass as well as hand rails along this part, so it is perfectly safe. While climbing up the dome, your portion of the route on the inside of the dome is one level below your view of the inside when climbing down. Sometimes the stairs are very narrow and steep along the climb, although I didn't find it particularly strenuous.  

The Brunelleschi Dome took 140 years to complete.  The cathedral is the 3rd largest cathedral in the world.  The dome was completed without wooden scaffolding.  More than 4 million bricks were used to build the dome.  It is the largest brick dome in the world.  The Duomo has a fifteenth century clock that runs counterclockwise. This clock is above the main entrance of the Cathedral.  You can see it when visiting the Cathedral or when beginning and ending your dome climb.  During the climb up the dome, you will see statues of saints on a terrace part-way up the climb.  On the climb down, you will see tools used in building the dome that are on display on a different terrace.

We chose to purchase the Brunelleschi pass so that in addition to climbing the Duomo we could also climb Giotto's bell tower and visit the baptistery, the museum, the Santa Reparata, and the cathedral.  We scheduled our dome climb in the first available time slot and then had plenty of time to see everything else on Piazza del Duomo.  Each of the sites have different opening times, beginning with the duomo and the bell tower, which both open at 8:15 a.m.  The Reparata has the latest opening time of 10:45.  

The official website to purchase tickets to climb the Duomo and visit other sites on Piazza del Duomo is here:  Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore  

Hours for the Piazza del Duomo:

Dome:  8:15 a.m. -- 6:45 p.m.

Giotto's bell tower:  8:15 a.m. -- 6:45 p.m.

Baptistery: 8:30 a.m. -- 7:30 p.m.

Duomo Museum:  8:30 a.m. -- 6:00 p.m.

Basilica of Santa Reparata: 10:45 a.m. -- 4 p.m.

Cathedral:  10:15 a.m. -- 3:45 p.m.

Every first Tuesday of the month the museum is closed.  I very highly recommend purchasing a Brunelleschi Pass because it includes access to everything, including climbing the dome.  The Brunelleschi Pass costs 30 euro.  

The Cathedral's google maps location is:  Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore

I took this up-close photo of the exterior walls of the Cathedral - they are pretty amazing!

These were taken next to the south entrance

We entered the Cathedral through the doors for the Santa Reparata, and looked at the Cathedral before going downstairs.

This is the entrance that we used to enter the cathedral, which is also the entrance for the Santa Reparata

This is the Florence clock, which runs counter-clockwise

going through security

The clock was designed by Angelo di Niccolo

inside the Cathedral

going through security before our dome climb

inside the cathedral before our dome climb

walking around the lower section of the dome on our way up the climb

looking at the dome through plexi-glass

climbing the winding steps

climbing the last portion

taking our turn to head back down

My son on his way down when we climbed the dome in 2018

walking across the upper level of the dome

tools on display used to build the dome.