Pisa

For some reason this did not get posted back in 2018 when we did our trip to Italy, better late than never. We never did do a fill blog of the trip. Next time!!

Pisa was our first stop on our Italian road trip, and after a 5 hour drive was a welcomed please to explore for a couple of nights.

We had originally booked a Bed & Breakfast place a little further out of town that where we originally ended up at and although the hotel was in a sketchy part of town, it was comfortable and well placed for us to Explore Pisa on foot.

Our room was a little dated, but it did have a view of the city and you could just see the Leaning Tower from our room, well the very top as can been seen in the picture.

We found the service at the hotel to be very good, an example of this was when we discovered that our tour the next day required our voucher printed and would except a digital copy on my phone. We asked at reception if they had a business centre, which they did not, but they would print it for us if we emailed it to them.The morning buffet for breakfast was nothing to write home about, but it had enough options to give to the boost we would need for the day.First LooksAfter we had checked in we decided to go for a walk to stretch the legs So off we set towards the tower, which required a walk under a sketchy walk under an underpass that was covered in graffiti, something that was a theme through our whole trip in Italy.

It was very warm as we walked but it was amazing to take in the style and architecture of the billing’s along with the way but always mindful of the traffic as it was something we had been warned about before coming, watch out for the drivers. It took us about 15 mi s to walk to area of the tower, and as we walked through the arch and entered the area of the tower, we looked in awe… at the numbers of people, it took us back to being on Main Street Disneyland on Christmas Day a few years back, just throngs of people all looking, taking selfies, taking pictures in the traditional pose of holding up the tower, you know just like this.

Having said that it was, once again, one of those surreal movements similar to the first time we saw the Taj in India, it’s something you see over and over again, then you see it and are amazed. We quickly snapped some pictures and the wandered past the cathedral and closer to the tower. There was a large green space that had a fence around it, there seemed to be nobody on the grass only to find out that it was not allowed, I guess with the number of people it would quickly be destroyed and so they kept it well watered and people off it.

It was really our first time to look at menus and something we quickly noticed was how much competition there was for your business, once again we where taken back to India when store owners would come running out trying to get you to buy their stuff, same with the restaurants and the waiters, along with owners, to try and get you to sit down when all you wanted to do was look at the menu.

We wandered for a while and decided it was time for a sit and a drink and found a small little please with seating outside and ordered our first Spritz, this would be one of many as it seems it was the national refreshing drink. We where also served some peanuts and chips, a small version of a Tapa, although later on we would experience a full blown bar with Tapas. We sat for a while doing what we said we would do, and what you have to do, and took in the atmosphere and watched the world go by.

After another drink we took a walk back towards the tower deciding to check out where we had to do the next day to start our tower tour, we had read that you where not allowed to take any backpacks in the tower and wanted to make sure there was a place to store anything that we happened to bring the next day. As we walked we continued to check a few restaurants out as we knew we would be getting hungry soon and one restaurant pretty close to the tower looked appealing. So after checking out were we needed to be the next day, we took a chance and asked for a table right on the edge to we could once again people watch.

Being foodies we always try to make food a big part of any trip we do and this was not exception. We had read all about the various courses and how Italians eat, bad idea. After a Antipasti, Pizze, Secondi and Dolci, along with various wines wrapped up with Expresso and a Cappuccino, we were pretty full, well stuffed would be the word. It would be our second pizza as we had stopped at a roadside cafe the day before on the drive for lunch.