The Amazing Leaning Tower of Pisa!
We took the train and headed off for another wonderful day of exploring. On this particular day, we decided on Pisa. I have a neighbor from Italy and she told me that this was a must see. Although it's a big tourist attraction, it is truly amazing.
When we arrived at the Pisa train station, we immediately scouted out a place to buy bus tickets. We found a tabacco shop that sold the tickets but the guy informed us that the busses were on strike until 5:00 p.m. that evening. I thought that was just the craziest thing. We then queued up for a taxi but that line was ridiculously long. We took a vote and decided to hike the 2 kilometer trip to the tower. I'm glad we did. I was not a bad walk at all. It was pretty straightforward from the train station and did not seem long at all.
The tower itself is just amazing. We took the typical tourist pictures around it but opted not to go in it. My daughter's friend said that it cost some incredible amount just to go on it. We took her word and just decided to enjoy the area around it. There wasn't much else in that area to see. Besides the beautiful structures there was just stall after stall of tourist souvenirs across the street.
We found a nice little pizzeria and grabbed a bite to eat. While we were eating these street hawkers would come up and try to sell fake D&G sunglasses or fake Rolex watches. Our poor waiter had to keep chasing them away. It was kind of amusing to watch because they were so sneaky if anyone would give them eye contact they would instantly appear after he left to go inside and get an order. He would come back out and have to chase them away again.
After that, it was off to the trains. Florence and Pisa were quite a ways away from our villa so we always had to be aware of the times for the last trains. I think we had adequate time in this city to see what we wanted. It was another great day in Italy.
