Walking up to the top of the Duomo was surreal. You feel so big in the narrow stairways but once you get to the top you realize how small you really are.

The shocking moment for me was being able to see the walls of the city. I was able to look out at the beautiful city that Dante was exiled from and thought about what it would be like to taken away from the place that I love. I can see now why it was so traumatic for him to be exiled and why it fueled him to write how he did.

Other than that moment it hit me again when we were on the way down and walked around the base of the dome and walked around “hell”. The more that I looked at the painting of hell the more i realized how descriptive and terrifying this is. Reading about it you get the scary sense but when you see it you realize how completely terrifying it is. The images there would scare even the slightest religious person. The more I stared the more I understood exactly how terrifying it is. I was told when I was young that hell is a terrifying place and that you should do everything you can not to end up there. Now I know exactly what he was talking about.

This trip has brought me back to my religious roots. The more I see how these beautiful sites affect me the more I realize what I was taught. This part of my life might have taken a slight absence but it is definitely something I need to get back to.