The closing hour for the day being twelve, no one is allowed to start up after about a quarter past eleven: a very foolish arrangement, since Florence and the surrounding Apennines under a slanting sun are more beautiful than in the morning glare, and the ascent would be less fatiguing.

As it was, on descending, after being so long at the top, I was severely reprimanded by the custodian, who had previously marked me down as a barbarian for refusing his offer of field-glasses.

But the Palazzo Vecchio tower is open till five.
The Baptistery is the beautiful octagonal building opposite the cathedral, and once the cathedral itself.

It dates from the seventh or eighth century, but as we see it now is a product chiefly of the thirteenth.

The bronze doors opposite the Via Calzaioli are open every day, a circumstance which visitors, baffled by the two sets of Ghiberti doors always so firmly closed, are apt to overlook.