December gets cold.

Well hey, it's gotten down to the frigid temperature of 11 degrees these days. Damned cold compared to how nice it's been not even a couple of weeks ago. Ah well, that cannot be helped. Myself and some friends decided the other day that a climb to the top of the dumo was in order.We started outside in the Piazza Duomo. There is a lovely christmas tree in sight of the entrance to the Duomo.



We had to buy tickets, which then were bitten by a machine to allow us entrance to the first of a series of narrow staircases. After a brief climb, we were vomited into a small room which contained a small number of caged statues.





I'm not entirely sure why the statues were caged, they must be something like the Weeping Angels from Doctor who. Anyway, after that it was for more climbing.



However arduous it was, we finally made it to the first level of catwalks which ran around the interior of the cathedral. The view was amazing and all the little people looked like ants.





This was followed by more climbing and another level of catwalks. Also, there was this sign all over the starwell and stuff. As you can obviously tell, it had absolutely no effect what so ever.



More climbing, more walking along narrow hallways. Through the windows we could get a better idea of how high up the dome we were.







More climbing.....




And then....!


Up top!







In the second picture there, you can see the tree I photographed in the first picture on this post. The view was breathtaking and well worth the climb and the 8 euros admission fee. I took a lot more pictures, like around a hundread more which you can check out on my google+ page here.