Abi à Pisa

We stopped for a coffe at Lake Trasimeno, which looked as big as Lake Taupo.
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This was the day to make the big trip to Pisa. It was also the day to get accustomed to driving in Italy on the autostrade. I have always found driving overseas a bit stressful from time to time and vowed to be relaxed on this one, but this was tested as soon as we reached Foligno (the closest big town!!), where we got a bit lost before joining the local autostrada bound for Perugia and then on to the main A1, which is a toll road. Once on the toll road, there appeared to be no speed limit, so as I got more accustomed to the conditions, I began to drive a bit more like the locals. However, being regularly overtaken while cruising at 130km/hr was interesting… Mostly the traffic is very well behaved, with the hundreds of trucks keeping to the slow lane and only overtaking traffic in the fast lane. The other thing about these autostrade is that they have very few on – off junctions. We were jammed in traffic at one point and decided to exit to take back roads. Well, good idea, but there were no exits to join the back roads!! We traveled a good 20km at least before finding somewhere to turn around and go back to where we were!!

Had to take this one, as Shannon hates pigeons with a passion...
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We also realized the upside and down side to having a car. It felt wonderful to have a car when we first picked it up. Freedom, lots of options and feeling a bit more like a local. The down side is when you reach a touristy destination such as Pisa is finding your way around with the maze of one way streets and then getting some parking.

Leaving our lovely, small medieval town to go to Pisa was also interesting. I had forgotten already what it felt like to be back in a tourist spot, where local culture has been over-run by the tourist trade. Pisa was like that and even more so than when we were there last time. You have to pay for everything now, including access to some of the beautiful churches and other sites. It is fair enough from some respects, as there are millions of people accessing these sites and there is investment required to support this, but it is lovely in Montefalco to wander down the street and see the unspoilt and somewhat unrestored churches built not long after the time of St Francis of Assisi and be the only one there to soak up the atmosphere. The ornate churches in Pisa are also in stark contrast to some of the ancient buildings here, which are very simple in design and decoration.

The obligatory Pisa Pose...
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Pisa was a great airport for Abi to arrive from and it was great to see her come through the gate. We had received a call from her earlier in the day from London saying she had arrived at Gatwick airport and could not find the British Airways check in desks. Fair enough.. We texted her back a bit later to confirm she was OK and she replied that she had been in the wrong part of the hospital!! (She works in a hospital). She negotiated all this successfully however and Shannon was delighted to see her and they were more interested in simply catching up than in any of the sights at Pisa (after the obligatory Pisa pose), so we embarked on the 3.5 hour trip back to Montefalco. I was very tired and grumpy when we arrived home… I guess the stress of driving and lack of much food finally caught up on me and to learn we had lost the Americas Cup as well, that was the last straw…

My best shot of the Tower..
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One photo from PIsa to come of Abi and Shannon, but not loaded yet.