See what happens when you let engineers play with tools??

Mar 28/07

We got up early because we didn't remember what time the train left for Pisa. In a stroke of good luck, it wasn't for an hour. This left lots of time for me to leave Gimpy and go get pastries filled with ricotta cheese and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and fresh-squeezed, blood-orange juice from our favorite chef. It was incredible, just like the last 2 meals he made us.

In Pisa, we joined the hoards of people dropping luggage at the left-luggage office. I think Pisa is one of the most-visited places that people don't actually STAY at. Most people are there for 1-2 hrs. We took the bus to the tower and I was very surprised to see it wasn't just there, all alone in the middle of a field. It's actually part of a large complex of buildings, including a cathedral. It was started in 1173 and took almost 200 years to complete. Also, the tower is really beautiful (another surpise). It's currently under restoration...again. Because of the tilt, it's necessary to do a lot of work to keep it upright, but not straight as well as to keep it clean. It is affected quite differently on each side because on is sheltered and one gets the full force of the rain, wind etc.

After sqeezing through the crowds to get the requisite shots of us holding up the tower, we had a nice lunch, picked up our luggage and hopped the next train to Florence. Grand total...2 hrs.

Florence was beautiful, but also frustrating. It was our first encounter with not being able to find a place to stay. We spent about an hour online looking for a free room, and phoning around before stumbling upon a few open beds just blocks from the train station. We decided at that point to book the rest of Italy right away, becuase with Easter coming up and spring break in the USA, it was nuts.