After getting unpacked and settled in yesterday, it is time to start venturing out and seeing the sights. Today I take a bus tour with my room mates through their university to Pisa and Lucca. We all met at the famous Santa Croce Cathedral, just a few blocks from our apartment and then walked over to the Arno River to catch our tour bus. It was a nice ride to Pisa. Although it was chilly outside, the sun was out and the countryside picturesque. Pisa, of course, is famous for its leaning bell tower. I had been here before on another trip and was rather unimpressed. On my first visit I had this uneasy feeling that I was about to be robbed and that my car and its contents would be gone when I returned. I didn’t stay long enough except to get a couple of photos and walk around the buildings before I left. This time the bus parked in a designated area for tour buses and we walked a fair distance to the main site of all the structures. The tower and its companion buildings are really all there is to see in Pisa. Besides the leaning bell tower, there is the Duomo, and a Baptistery famous for its echoing acoustics. We had a guided tour through all 3 of the main buildings and I learned a lot more than I did on my first visit. Italy has done a great job in marketing Pisa and its leaning bell tower. There isn’t really much here to see that you can’t see elsewhere. In fact there are structures throughout Italy that lean more than this bell tower.
We left Pisa for our 1 hour bus ride to Lucca. I had heard so much about Lucca but had never been there. Lucca is an impressive fortress city encircled by a perfectly intact wall. Most ancient cities were walled, but the walls were torn down as part of their modernization. Here you can walk inside, on top of or around the walled city. By the time we arrived in Lucca it had started to rain pretty hard. So most of us found a bistro to have a bowl of farrow and bean soup. Farrow soup is a local favorite. Then we strolled through the streets of this quaint little town and did a little window shopping. Lucca is just a short train ride from Florence. I definitely plan to return here on one of my weekend days to rent a bike and ride atop the wall all they way around the city.
I am still jet lagged and fall into bed as soon as I arrive back to our apartment.
Cindy Mochel Livermore 