Pisa

---

Saturday night continued

We went down to have something to eat about seven thirty. The restaurant, “the Pasta & Grill”, is another new experience for us. You are given a piece of paper with all the various food and drink options. You select your choices and then hand it in to the waitress. We got what we wanted, so must have done it right.

We were given some tapenard as an appetiser and then had a buffet salad starter and vegetable soup, penne pasta carbonara and chicken breast with chips, and some cheese for dessert. All in all, not a bad meal.

Sunday, 2nd November, 2008.

Plan for today, more of Florence.

We weren't to quick off the mark and left about elevenish, we had a coffee and croissant before we left the Hotel, as breakfast.

We parked at the Stazione parking again,as we knew where it was.

The Tourist information was around the station somewhere, so we went looking. At the first one we found you could book train and Hotel tickets, so decided to ask about accommodation in Pisa for tomorrow. They said that another place further along the station would be better, so off we went. The young lady was very helpful and we ended up booking a place called Repubblica Marinara, just off the centre apparently, and four stars. We shall see.

After this good start we went off to find one of two things that we particularly had in mind; The Palazzo Pitti. This was the other side of the Ponte Vecchio, so we walked through the main tourist streets again. The whole town was throbbing with people. We found the place and opted for ticket 2, which was the gardens and a couple of the museums. The weather was glorious and in the early twenties, you could certainly feel the sun.

We had a quick espresso, to give us energy, in the museum cafeteria.

The Palazzo Pitti, was another grand and special place. The building was started by Pitti, but the Medici's finished it. The Medici's without doubt were not short of a bob or two. Also, historically a very famous family, with papal connections and everything.

The gardens gradually rose up a hill and covered a fair bit of land, lots of steps. At the top you could look back and see into Florence, the roof of the Duomo, and so on.

At the top was a garden and buildings with lovely views away from Florence. In the building was a collection of Porcelain, some very old stuff, including Sevres and some Worcester.

Back down through the gardens and ground to the Palazzo, we found another museum our ticket allowed us, The Museo degli Argenti - The Silver Museum - and this was within the Palazzo, which itself had beautiful painted ceilings, in these massive rooms. This could have been enough in itself, but then you had this wonderful collection of fascinating items, as well.

Cosimo Medici, who started it all, was an intelligent and scientific chap, who had dealings with Galileo and other very noted individuals. The museum held all sorts of early scientific instruments and books, from these times.

This was only a part of the collection, the rest related to many aspects of the Medici family and it's obvious wealth.

The Museum, took a lot longer than we would have thought, and was very much worth a visit. We probably spent about three hours inside and in the grounds.

Our feet had been on the go for some time, so we stopped at a restaurant in the vicinity, La Segrestia, and had a “light lunch”, eggs, bacon and chips.

We were heading back gradually to the car, trying to find the Galleria dell' Accedemia, on the way if we could. This was our second item, to try in do in the day if possible. However, we were conscious of the time, now being four ish and it was Sunday, so we thought it would probably be closed even if we found it.

The signs for it started appearing and we made our way there, to find that it was open until 1850, so we were wrong and impressed with opening hours in Italy, on this occasion.

The Museum contained a particular item that Pat wanted to see - Michael Angelo's David.
At 5.16 metres tall a truly marvelous sculpture. The detail of veins standing out on his arms is quite something.

Pat had seen some boxer shorts with the appropriate portion of “David's” copied onto them and found them very amusing. We also heard a comment about not being overly concerned about the overall statue, but “just wanted to see his willy”.

The Museum contained many other items of interest, from paintings to other sculptures and we had a look around for a while, but had achieved our main objectives for the day, so decided to head for the car.

We left Florence centre around fiveish and made it back to the Hotel. Traffic was very heavy leaving the centre.

The location of the Hotel, had originally appeared to be in the middle of a wasteland of car parking, with nothing to speak of around it. As we left in the morning,the whole place seemed a lot more active than yesterday and we said we would investigate, when we returned.

On our return the place was absolutely buzzing. It turns out the wasteland of a car park, is actually a gigantic car park for a massive shopping mall, which is a little bit away from the hotel, and it must have been shut yesterday, for All Saints day, hence total inactivity.

Today it was full on. If you can imagine Bluewater, or similar, then this was it. The shops shut at Ten tonight and the restaurants Midnight - on a Sunday.

We left the car at the Hotel, other people were using it to park, as they couldn't get a space, by the Mall and it was a ten minute walk away.

I don't think anybody could have been left at home in Florence, half were in the city and the other half were in this Shopping Mall.

We wandered around and amongst the many shops found a supermarket that we can look at better tomorrow.

We decided that we would eat here as they had various restaurants and found one that had a view of a very big television screen, showing to all and sundry the last Grand Prix of the season. A number of Wives had been left to look around shops on their own, by Husbands, by the look of it.

The restaurant was The Old Wild West and we had some Burger and chips, and got to watch the Grand Prix, and see Hamilton win the championship. The Italians weren't too happy, but I cheered. A lone cheer. I also had a chocolate sponge thing with cream, to keep the table until the end of the race, but I did enjoy it.

The evening had ended unexpectedly, with the Shopping Mall popping up and surprising us as it did, but a pleasant one.

Florence is a beautiful and splendid city with many, many attractions, that we only saw a small part of. It has an incredible history, that is tied into so many things that we have all heard of. It's one of those places that you would need a week do do everything. However, neither of us liked the city. It has so much that it doesn't have to work hard to attract people, they obviously come in droves. But the City doesn't seem to care for them, and there isn't a feeling of warmth, it's not a bad feeling, but one of laziness.

Monday 3rd November, 2008

Plan for today, travel from Florence to Pisa, a distance of about 90 kilometers.

We were up and about our usual time, and left the Hotel jut before ten. We drove straight to the shopping mall to pick up a few bits and pieces. The supermarket was pretty big, but we didn't wander around too much, as we wanted to move on. However, the usual blight of supermarkets works in Italy the same as everywhere else, nobody on the tills. We spending longer queuing to pay, than we do shopping, It took ages.

Then we did our usual and headed off in various directions, and eventually ended up traveling on the toll motorway, although we had planned to travel by lesser roads, we couldn't find the road we wanted.

We stopped for breakfast at a motorway area, coffee's and croissants.

The rain, which we saw forecast last night, sadly decided to spoil our day and as we came into the outskirts of Pisa, it started to rain heavily. Our original plan was to do some of Pisa this afternoon and go to the Hotel later. The weather changed our minds and we found the Hotel and even though we were early for check-in let us into the room.

Pisa, isn't a big town and the Hotel is not central, but we are still within a good walk of the things to see.

After a while the rain seemed to have eased off, so we dressed appropriately and walked into town.

It probably took us about forty to fifty minutes to walk to the Piazza Duomo, which contains the Leaning Tower, The Cathedral, The Babtistry and the Museum delle Sinopie.

You have all seen pictures of the tower and know that it leans. I am not going to tell you any different here. In Suffolk, we would say it was “Sloightly on the huh”. But, it certainly does lean. On the walk in, we had bought some sandwiches and a sticky bun for me, we sat and ate them while studying the Tower. You can pay to do the Tower, but you usually have to book the day before, and to be truthful, it didn't interest Pat or I.

We took loads of pictures, but not the usual one, of trying to hold up the Tower. A few hundred tourists were doing it.

The Cathedral was free entry and we took a stroll around. The inside was impressive and very well lit. Better than the one in Venice or Florence.

Part of the walls of the City are here as well, so we looked at them for a while.

We decided to look at the Museo delle Sinopie. This was all about some famous frescoes, but also told about the recent work to stop the Tower falling further. It killed some time, and after this we felt we had done the highlights of Pisa, so headed back to the Hotel.

The rain never really came back and in fact as we arrived at the Piazza Duomo, the sun came out, and allowed us to take pictures in the sunshine, It got gloomy again later, but no more rain.

We wandered back through the historical part of the City and followed the river for a while and got back to the Hotel around five thirty.

Pisa is a very open City, with a lot of space around. Not everything seems o be on top of everything else, as some of our recent places.

A lot of American accents in evidence.

We now have to decide our next move. We have decided against Rome. We spent time there recently and feel that we have done the major sights.

We would like to do Pompei, Herculaneum, The Isle of Capri, Vesuvius and the Amalfi coast, before moving on to Sicily. We don't really want to go anywhere near Naples, if we can help it, so are investigating our options.

---