On the drive here yesterday we stopped in Pisa. All I can say is WOW! I could have sat there for hours staring at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. There is a video probably online that tells how they renovated it in the 1990's. I think it took 10 years to stop it from collapsing. The exterior is nice and cleaned too; as the buildings in Europe often get dirty from the diesel. The area around the tower and other attractions has graffiti, and isn't very nice; the river and surroundings are pretty dirty.
We initially parked but we felt anxious about leaving the vehicle for long with all of our stuff, including Art's bike and our laptop. So he left me near a restaurant not far from the tower and was simply going to move the car to a handicapped spot near where I was waiting! About 45 minutes later he showed up. He kept running into one way streets, bus only streets and started getting farther and farther away!!! It was like a labyrinth. . . the harder I tried to get back, the harder I tried to think of a way back, the further and further away I became. Finally I had to just stop the car and think for a minute--find the Carabineri? Oh! I took a picture of the street where I'd started. I typed the street name into the GPS, making up a street number, and pushed "go" and voila! I was back in 5 minutes. That was a horribly frustrating experience. I had both phones with me in the car. I had no way to communicate with Linda--no way to call her, text her, nothing. And she had no way to get in touch with me.
I kept trying not to worry or start to panic! My imagination can start running wild..."Date Line" episodes! So once he fit the vehicle in the space (nice parking work) we used the wheelchair to get to the tower. We had to get tickets to see the other buildings. The church was free but there are time slots to go in; so we ate lunch back near the car and then saw the church before heading on the road to our lodging.
The obligatory shot. Convincing, eh?
Just in case you were wondering how some Italians felt about the EU's position on austerity.
The residence here (Locanda del Papa) is about 400-500 years old, it is kinda musty and damp in our room but it is nice. The owners, Davide and Roberta, are very friendly and they have 2 female cats that hunt many critters. One of the cats ate 3 baby bunnies when they were just days old :(
They have several bunnies here in a pen but I think they eat all but a few of them. Makes me want to be vegetarian. The hillsides are full of trees and it is very quiet. The owners have 200 Olive Trees here and 300+ on another piece of family owned property. The wife, Roberta, makes home made jam which we had at breakfast and it was fantastic. They gave us a bottle of white wine from a small winery in the region (Art doesn't like wine and I don't like white wine) but we thanked them and told them it was great! We will purchase some of the jam.
9/18 breakfast was great, lots of types of bread and pizza, homemade jam, great coffee. Art went into the countryside for a ride and I am resting my leg and catching up on the blog. The other guests here are all in one group and are older couples from France.
In the last few days mosquitoes have been eating Art alive; he looks like he has "chicken pox"!
Inside the Cathedral at Pisa
In the evening after Art returned from his ride (he was lost a few times) we went to the Mediterranean town of Lerici. Parking was an absolute nightmare; Art dropped me off then was driving for 30 minutes or so and finally found parking and brought me the wheelchair. I think the evening is the best time to be there as there were fewer tourists out and about. We took some great pictures of the sunset.
We ate dinner at a local hotel near our lodging and they had the best Pesto on pasta ever.
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