On our way from Venice to Florence we made a quick pit stop in Pisa so that we could visit the famous leaning tower. Pisa was quite the quaint, cute little town. Believe it or not, it was actually the first city that measured up to my preconceived notions and felt like "Italy" to me. For this reason, I was sad we weren't able to stay longer than about 45 minutes. I wanted to stay and soak up the offerings of such a wonderful city!
The town itself is small and filled with cute, cottage type houses and alive with vibrant flowers and gardens. The local restaurants and people seemed just how I pictured an Italian town in my head so it was neat to see in real life. Of course the only reason tourists visit this little town though is to see the leaning tower of Pisa. Alan told us that engineers have been trying everything to find a way to keep the tower from leaning any further but have yet to have any luck. They actually even closed it for about 20 years or so and up until about a month and a half ago it had scaffolding everywhere as they were working on it but they just removed it so we were lucky to see it naturally. I thought it would be best to try and push it over further but the engineering of it seemed to hold up better than expected!
Once we left Pisa we made our way into Florence where we met our tour guide for the afternoon, Andrea. Alan says that the Italians are very specific about tour guides in Florence (stemming from the Mafia still being very prevalent in this city) so they do not allow non Italian tour guides to work in their city. We spent nearly two hours walking the city and seeing all the main cites. It was beautiful! I can honestly say I couldn't understand much of what Andrea was saying so I didn't learn much about Florence's history but all the statues, architecture, and the overall feel of it was stunning.
We saw the funniest mime performing on the streets and stood and watched for several minutes. I have come across so many street performers in my short time in Europe that are very talented but this guy proved to be the most amusing. He probably had a crowd of nearly 300 people watching his act.
After our tour was over we met up with Alan again at one of the local leather stores to watch a leather demonstration. They spent about 20 minutes with us showing us the proper way to distinguish real leather from fakes and informing us of all the potential ways that street dealers would try and sell tourists fake leather as real leather. I'm not sure if you know but one of the many goods Italy is known for is their high quality genuine leather. I actually found the demonstration quite interesting as well as informing...of course afterward we were offered a 10% discount in the store since we could be guaranteed they only sold genuine leather!
Sunday, July 3
Today was our free day to explore Florence. I opted not to go into the city and decided to instead stay at our campsite/resort and relax. Our campsite is nearly 30 minutes outside of Florence, deep in the Tuscan hills, and it is wonderful!!!! As I imagined, being on tour is awesome and exhausting all at the same time. I love getting to see so much in a short amount of time but I was growing a bit tired of the hustle and bustle of being a tourist (you know, being herded around like cattle), the schedules, and being around a large group of people 24/7 so I just wanted to stay behind and enjoy some me time. Let me just tell you... I had the most amazing day! I slept it until 10am (which is late compared the the 6am starts I have had everyday since the tour began), got some laundry done, went for a run, and relaxed all afternoon by the pool. Look a some if the shots of Tuscany that I got on my run!
I was already thrilled with my decision to stay behind (about 8 other people stayed as well) since I had such a wonderful day but I was even more pleased with my choice when the group returned and many people informed me that they too wished they would have stayed behind. They said the lines for every museum were anywhere between 1-3 hours long and that a lot of the local restaurants and stores were closed because it was Sunday.
I now feel COMPLETELY recharged and ready for our next adventure! Tomorrow we are off to see Rome and I'm super excited! Tomorrow is also the two week mark on my journey and the fourth of July! I hope you all have (or I should say had since I won't be able to post this until tomorrow) a wonderful 4th. I love you all and miss you all so much!
Here is the link toview pics!
https://picasaweb.google.com/118224782848888880659/PisaAndFlorence?authkey=Gv1sRgCPzZv4zJr5i8Lg
Love,
Lindsay
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Pisa and Florence, Italy
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