This morning we arrived at the port of Livorno Italy, where
we started our tour of Pisa and Florence in the Tuscany district of northern
Italy. The first thing we noticed when
we woke up and looked out our window was that you could see the Italian Alpine mountains
and they had lots of snow on their peaks.
We knew we were in for a cold day.
Our bus trip to Pisa took about 30 minutes where we first passed
by an American military base which was home to about 1000 families and was 400
km2 in size. I guess the cold war is still not over.
After departing from our tour bus in Pisa we had quite a
long trek to get to famous Leaning Tower.
Here we took a lot of pictures including several of usual ones with one
of us pretending to hold up the tower.
The cathedral was under repair but the tower and the baptistery were in
their full magnificent glory. While we
were there, an engineering crew was measuring the slant of the tower. I guess this a periodic safety check to
ensure that tower remains stable.
The tour then travelled to Florence, which is about an hour
drive from Pisa. After lunch in S. Croce
Square, Marg went shopping and I went to some of the famous sites that I missed
last year. I went to the Ponte Vecchio
Bridge to see the goldsmiths in action.
I then followed the path through the major sites of the old part of Florence that are described in Dan Brown’s novel “Infernal.” Most of the museums were closed as it is their custom to close on Mondays.
It was so cold in Florence that it started to
snow for a short period of time.
Walking on these cobblestone streets really is hard on the
joints. Everyone on the bus seemed to be
limping, by the end of the day.
For dinner we had a Spanish Rojas wine, which Marg really
liked.
After dinner we went to the stage show and saw a Welsh
comedian/singer named Mike Doyle. It was a very funny and entertaining show. Head
and shoulders above the shows that we were subjected to on the Holland American
cruise we went on last year.
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