An afternoon in Pisa

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After writing my blog i went for a bit of a walk and found a bookshop. I bought another Ken Follet book after reading Pillars of the Earth i think it was called. Apparently he is in the same class as Matthew Riley as all his books are full of action and suspense.

The train trip to Pisa cost EUR5.40 and was just over an hour. I got worried for a while when i had got lost in my book and realised that it was highly possible that i had missed the station. But the worry was unnecessary and I ended up at the right station. I made my way to the Piazza Duomo where the leaning tower is located without a map. It is just over a km from the central station but there is a nice stretch of arcades and beautiful buildings to walk through on your way. i actually found Pisa more enchanting than Florence, perhaps because there where not as many people there, even though it was a lot grubbier and more run down.

I prepared to give Florence a second chance tomorrow as my first impressions were pretty bad. The streets are small and isolated and i felt quite vulnerable walking down them, but perhaps that was due to a few experiences where a couple of Italian men had made lude comments at me. I like to think of myself as a pretty tough girl but when you are getting constant attention from men and walking down isolated lanes it can be a bit unpleasant.

The Piazza Duomo in itself is a beautiful place. The leaning Tower of Pisa is interesting but not what i considered the highlight of the area, although i did try to check out how they had actually stopped the Campanile (spelling?) from falling over completely. But alas, they of course had that whole section barricaded off.

A lot of the buildings are actually unfinished. The rood is incomplete with only the lead sheeting in place and a lot of the marble facing on the columns especially were missing. I wonder if this is because they are replacing and repairing it during the low season or if they just stopped working on it because the campanile started to fall over. Apparently there were supposed to be about 4 towers in total but the project was abandoned due to the poor soil.

I had lasagne for lunch and a cappacino while i was in Pisa. I have actually had quite a few meals of lasagne and spaghetti bolognase since being in Italy and i have actually grown quite fond of them. they are the cheapest things on the menu of you were wodnering why i was eating them so much. the other thing i have been having a bit of is real Italian hot chocolates, somewhat like the ones you see in the movie Chocolat. it is like drinking pure chocolate, Yum! Gelati's have also been a common thing and unfortunately i have only had one time where the Gelati beat anything you could get in Melbourne. It was in Rome and right near the Pantheon. I think the shop was called Nice Ice or something like that.

Tomorrow i will stay in Florence as i have previously said and then i will head to San Gimignano for the next day. 17 days till i am home and 9 days until i will be in Malaysia. I intend on making the most of the Italian culture even though the guys are very sleazy.

Until next time...

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