Florence, Italy
Duomo, Or Die Trying
"Renaissance masterpieces, Ryanair-tier crowd control"
Official Coat of Arms
A shield bearing the Duomo's dome rendered slightly smaller than reality suggests, flanked by two exhausted selfie sticks rampant. Beneath, a scroll reading 'Cash Only, Card Machine Broken', and a single gelato cone dripping onto cobblestones that have not been level since the 1400s.
TripAdvisor Review
★★★★☆ 4/5
"Stood in a queue for two hours to see a statue of a man that is, and I cannot stress this enough, extremely naked. The Duomo is genuinely breathtaking but so is the smell of forty tour groups sweating through a July heatwave in a stone canyon with zero shade. Also paid nine euros for a coffee while standing near the Ponte Vecchio, which felt like a heist I willingly participated in. Would still go back because the food ambushed my expectations in the best way."— Gary Pemberton-Fitch, Solihull
Property Listing
Charming Renaissance apartment with 'exposed original stonework' (load-bearing, non-negotiable), footsteps from the Uffizi and therefore also footsteps from every tour group in Tuscany from 9am to 9pm. Rare opportunity to live somewhere so beautiful you'll forget you can't get a delivery van down your own street.
Twinned With
Venice — Both cities have accepted that their entire economy now runs on tour groups following a raised umbrella.
Supporting Evidence
Florence's Duomo took 140 years to build and its dome remains one of the largest brick domes ever constructed, mostly because everyone kept stopping to admire it instead of finishing it.