Florence

Florence spent decades with a giant hole in the roof of its cathedral. When construction began in 1296, the design called for the widest dome in the world, 45 meters across. There was just one problem: nobody knew how to build it.

So they finished the rest of the church and left the top open, hoping someone would eventually work it out. For decades, rain fell straight inside.

In 1418, the city held a competition. A goldsmith named Filippo Brunelleschi won with a radical plan: a dome raised without wooden scaffolding, built from more than four million bricks laid in a herringbone pattern. It took 16 years. Nearly 600 years later, it's still the largest brick dome ever built.

That ambition defined Florence. The city grew rich on wool, silk, and banking, and in 1252 it minted a gold coin called the florin. The florin became so trusted that it turned into the standard currency for trade across Europe.

The bankers who grew rich on it, above all the Medici family, spent staggering sums on art. They funded Botticelli, Leonardo, and a young Michelangelo, bankrolling the Renaissance.

It wasn't all golden. The Black Death killed half the city in 1348. In 1497, the monk Savonarola convinced Florentines to burn their art, books, and mirrors in the Bonfire of the Vanities. A year later, they burned him.

War and water tested the city too. In 1944, retreating German troops blew up every bridge over the Arno except the Ponte Vecchio. In 1966, the river flooded and ruined millions of artworks, until volunteers from around the world came to save them.

See Michelangelo's David at the Accademia and Botticelli's paintings at the Uffizi. Climb the 463 steps inside Brunelleschi's dome for a view over the rooftops. Walk across the Ponte Vecchio, still lined with goldsmiths' shops.

Eat a bistecca alla fiorentina, a giant T-bone served rare, and a scoop of gelato, which Florentines claim they invented.