Pisa

The mood took us today to visit Pisa, we took off for the station in the heat - the picture of the pigeons is to show that even they thought it was hot! They were all sitting in the sun, resting on the ground like they were in a nest, I assume to keep cool. We were helped on our very long trek to the station by our old friend Gelati (flavours today included fruit of the forest and choc chip for Sarah and lemon and strawberry for me). Sarah who is becoming a bit of a gelati expert tells me that choc chip was nowhere near as good as the 16 Euro massive cone we had in Rome!

So now, we've managed to travel on all three train systems in Italy - the Metro, the regional train and the high speed train. The trip to Pisa took a little over an hour for 70kms so very much slower than the high speed trains. Given that we arrived at 2pm, we decided to get a taxi to the Tower from the train station which conveniently drops you right outside.

Warning: Stupid Tourist saying coming up………

I have to say - this of all the sights we've visited looks most like the pictures you see in books and I can't believe how much of a lean it's really on!

The weather was a treat for viewing the tower and assorted buildings. Bright green grass; clear deep blue skies and the white marble of the tower all made for a picture perfect setting. We tried the shot where we're holding up the tower along with hundreds of other people! There were so many set shots here, we should all be in the actors union! People doing handstands in front; people jumping like in the Toyota ads and people taking shots of the people taking shots!!

We heard the grass keeper before we saw him, blowing his whistle as he walks the length of the grass. Here is where our rule following ways ended and we climbed the fence once he had gone and looked at the tower from the shade of the wall. I sat in bird poop (excellent) which I tried to convince Sarah was good luck but she wasn't buying it and would no longer hold my hand!

Taxi back to the train station and we were on our way home - farewell Pisa!