Advertisement
Published: January 31st 2006
Edit Blog Post
As there are beginnings, there are endings for everything; Alpha and Omega. Our time in Italy is ticking away; and the next thing we knew, we had get off our couch and gathered our belongings for the last time from our apartment, a place we called home for the last three months. We drank our last water from a cold Roman fountain, we saw San Pietro for the last time from a distance, and we walked along the Roman black cobble street stones, headed out to the Metro Ottaviano/San Pietro Metro station that would bring us to Termini station to continue on with our lives.
Sad was not a good adjective to describe our feeling, but I couldn’t help it by feeling so miserable. At the same time, anxious started to fill me in as we were just starting our two week backpacking journey to other seven major cities in seven countries in Europe. It sounded almost too much, but I am ready for it.
We had no choice but to choose Pisa as our closing trip in Italy. Pisa is famous for its leaning tower as part of structures at the Piazza dei Miracoli, and that was the
Pisa streetscape
This is how people park their bicycles on a sidewalk. thing we checked out as soon as we arrived at Pisa Centrale. After depositing our belongings at the station and only carrying small daily packs, we walked along the “tourist route” passing some busy streets of Pisa and crossing the Arno River, the same river that crosses Florence. Pisa has many interesting buildings and street scene, with series of loggia connecting the two together.
The prosperity of Pisa back in the Renaissance period produced many expensive structures and buildings, including the Cathedral of Pisa, with a bell tower that leans overtime.
Seeing it for the first time, I was amazed on how tilted the tower was. Supposedly, the tower was built on top of silt and unstable soil condition, and almost as soon as the structure began to rise, it started to tilt that the builders needed to redesign to accommodate the needs. Many people have been intrigued by the structure, notably was Galileo which conjured his gravity theory by dropping off some stones from the top of the tower, straight down. Unfortunately, as the Italian government struggles to keep the structure stands up by stabilizing the ground around it, the tower was closed down from visitors to
Piazza dei Miracoli
The Duomo and bell tower. climb up. Other than the famous bell tower, Piazza dei Miracoli also consists of the main Cathedral itself, and a baptistery.
Tuscan storm As we were leaving the complex back to train station, a Tuscany storm started to roll in with strong winds and dark clouds. I wasn’t kidding about the darkness; the three o’clock summer afternoon seemed to feel like six of a winter evening. Italian cypress trees started to bend, defending themselves from the strong winds; we tried our best to stay put on the ground as the fat raindrops started to pelt our skin. Soon enough, the streets of Pisa were flooded and although we tried to walk along the loggia, we were soaking wet to our underpants. We had no choice but to run to catch our train back at Pisa Centrale. It wasn’t cold, exactly, but being soaking wet back at the station wasn’t a pleasant feeling. And I hate wearing wet socks and sneakers!
Hopping back at the train, we hogged out a whole compartment by three of us, as we made ourselves comfortable changing and drying off our clothes by hanging them all around the room. We were cuddling
up under our blankets, trying to get warm it started to get cold. It was a Kodak moment when the ticket lady stopped by to check our tickets; unfortunately I didn’t have the time to snap a picture. We arrived in Milano to transfer (just went outside the station to grab a bite), before continued on to Interlaken, Switzerland, where we will spend the night.
Another perfect day, full with experiences to close down our trip in Italy. Thank you for your generosity and hospitality, Italy.
Ci vediamo presto!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.796s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 28; qc: 143; dbt: 0.4986s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb