Pisa Day Trip!

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I strongly believe in not talking about plans until they are set in stone. That is only why I just mentioned that we were going to buy tickets to Pisa. Luckily, everything turned out as planned (doesn’t happen often here!) and we got to spend the day there without a hitch. To describe myself as “happy” would be an understatement.

At 9:15am yesterday my 2 roommates and I met up with 2 other girls, one of them from St. Bonaventure, at the MiniMetro station. We took that to the train station, bought tickets from Perugia to Pisa Centrale. They were 14.75E both ways. Not bad!

The train took us from Perugia 2 hours north to Florence, where we got off, ran to get a snack, and then ran to another train going to Pisa. The next train took about an hour, then we were there!

The hunt to find the Tower of Pisa from the train station was seriously a scavenger hunt. Signs pointed every which way, we asked 2 random people for directions, then finally turned a corner and it was there! Luckily, our friend Gabrielle from school was with us. She’s often in Italy with her family and said she’s been to Pisa many times before, so she kind of knew her way around and is pretty good at Italian. Seeing the tower had me doing tiny skips for joy. I couldn’t believe we were at one of the most tourist-y spots in Italy and spending the day there. Getting those classic pictures with the Tower is what people like me have life goals of. I can check that one off the list now. J

So we took our typical pictures, laughed a lot at the feeling of looking ridiculous holding our arms out as to hold the tower up. Everyone else was doing the same thing, making it even funnier. Next, we found the ticket area where we could buy a spot at a scheduled time to climb the tower. Gabrielle said out of the many times she was there, there were never spots open to climb it. Lucky for us, 9 spots were open and we purchased them for 15E immediately. We had about 20 minutes to kill before that time, so we took more pictures, and then ran into some friends from Umbra and another friend from St. Bonaventure. Bonnies unintentionally invaded Pisa that day!

Stepping into the Tower of Pisa was so exciting. You could feel the tilt right away. The marble steps were so worn down making them almost slippery. The walls were wet, almost like the inside of a cave or something. The stairs twirled up and there were windows every 20 or so steps that showed outside and inside so you could see how high you are. The Tower is about 200 feet high. Climbing it was a work out, in my opinion. Getting to the top, climbing in the narrowest set of slippery stairs, was an experience I will not forget. I swore I let out a little shriek at the view, then noticed how dead silent every other person was who was standing at the top.

That changed quickly. My roommate Carrie, who is terrified of heights, was sweating and noticeably scared of being so high up, she held on to the building while inching around it. That had the rest of us laughing wildly at her (I mean WITH her). We ruined that silence pretty quick, but then others, like a mom and her daughter probably our age, laughed along with us.

The view from the top was incredible. Looking down at everyone doing that typical “Pisa pose” as I’ll call it was funny, and seeing everything from that high up was seriously just great. The trek down was much harder, the stairs seemed so slanted, there was no railing to hold onto and holding onto the walls was impossible! Carrie, however, made her way down lightning fast. By the time we got down, our legs were shaking and we still felt like we were on a slant...not saying we're out of shape or anything! Spending that 15E to climb it was so worth it to me.

We waved good bye to the Tower and made our way back into town.The town, minus that tourist spot, and the main strip with all the shops, was pretty disappointing. It was dirty, no one was out, and didn’t smell that great!

For lunch we went to a place that had a bunch of pasta dishes all for about 5.20E. I had risotto con parmigiana and it was delicious J For dessert, we practically ran across the street to this crepe/gelato place Gabrielle raved about before we even got there called Gelateria Artigianale Yogurteria-Crepes. The inside was adorable, polka dots, probably 12 flavors of gelato out, a fridge of gorgeous little desserts and best of all…a crepe maker. I got one with Nutella and bananas. I was kind of full from lunch but never could have left that crepe unfinished.

We strolled the main strip of Pisa, which was pretty popular. There were tons of stores, restaurants and street vendors. I liked that part of Pisa and could have stayed longer probably. We made our way back to the train station after that and decided to take a train that was a little bit earlier than our original one. That ended up being delayed for half an hour, but we finally got on. We had to switch in Florence again, and that was kind of a hassle because the ticket doesn’t say the same train that you’re supposed to get on. We had to ask the people at the information booth, realized it was leaving in 2 minutes, then ran to that train! The 2 hour ride back was bumpy, loud and tiring. After finally getting to Perugia, we took a cab back to the main square which only cost 3E each for the 5 of us. The MiniMetro was closed and we were NOT about to walk home, like we saw other friends doing.

Well this post is my longest yet, maybe because I’m procrastinating doing homework, or maybe because I just really liked being in Pisa! Both.

I have school again tomorrow starting the 2^nd full week of classes. Ciao for now J thanks for reading!

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Photos

Pisa!
on our hunt to the Tower

Made it!!
Still can't believe I saw this thing in real life.

Pisa Pose!
had to be done :) :)

View from the Top!
please note that the gate-thing at the top was not even up to my shoulder! It's like they wanted you to fall off!

Risotto con Parmigiana
Lunch!

Crepe with Banana and Nutella
day-making

Bye, Tower
you can really see how tilted it is from here