We started out this morning down the street at a restaurant for croissants and tea/coffee.
We waited a while before leaving for the tram. We had put on pants today as it was going to be “only” 28 degrees. However, upon arrival at the tram station I decided to go back to the hotel and change into my cutoffs. This gave Caro some shopping time (souvenirs of course) and 20 minutes later we were on our way.
We got off near the cathedral and just started walking the streets. There are so many beautiful buildings here.
We walked and walked, and walked some more, enjoying the scenery. We had tickets for the cathedral at 4:45 PM so we had plenty of time to fill with sight seeing.
The weather forecast for today was cloudy with a 25% chance of rain at 11 AM so we knew we were OK not taking our umbrella’s. Oops!! At 3 PM it poured for quite a while. We just stayed in stores or under covered areas like everybody else.
As we were having a beer (just to keep out of the weather) I realized our tickets for the cathedral were actually for tomorrow. SH@T!! Panic time!!
We decided to play the Dumb Tourists and got in line for the 4:45 tour. Unfortunately the ticket fellow caught the mistake and wouldn’t let us in anyway, directing us around the cathedral to other side to the ticket office.
Once there we stood in line with other people waiting to get the very limited amount of tickets that are released every 30 minutes (at least that was my understanding). Caro explained our situation to one of the guards and she (Caro) said we would be willing to purchase new tickets because we wanted to see the cathedral and we were leaving the city in the morning, The guard took us aside to the ticket office boss and after an explanation from us and showing her our train tickets for tomorrow she spoke to some entry people and our tickets for tomorrow were approved for today!!!! WHEW.
We climbed the bell tower and took a few photos.
The cathedral is MAGNIFICENT. Stunningly beautiful! The photos below do not do it justice.
The following two photos are the grave and monument of Christopher Columbus.
The cathedral was many stained glass windows
This photo is looking straight up at a dome roof
Here are some miscellaneous items I took photos of (there are MANY things here)
That painting is from 1547.
The building is so big with nooks and crannies all over, so I am quite sure we missed some parts.
About two hours later we were done and were eating a light supper at a nearby restaurant (Taverna) that was established in 1386
Some of the supper doesn’t look appetizing but it all tasted great
26,900 steps showing on my phone today, the highest amount for this trip.
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