Italy Day 6 - Pisa and Florence

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Today was the day we headed out to view the Tower of Pisa, and the city of Florence. Very interesting day to say the least.

The Tower of Pisa does in fact lean. It leans a lot. They did some work to try and stabilize it sometime back in the 80's, and it is still limited to 40 people at a time in the tower. The view of the tower, the church and the baptistery, were all nice. We did not enter the museum, or the cemetery.

Back on the bus, and headed for Florence. Lots of history in Florence. The Medici family was a powerful force. They pretty much did what they wanted to do. Family members included a Pope, and lots of other powerful figures. We toured the Duomo, aka Cathedral, the Palazzo Vecchio, the apartments of the family where they lived, which is a museum now. Also, we saw the Ponte Vecchio, which was a bridge that they built across the Arno river to connect the town. On the bridge was where the butcher shops were, so that they could cut their meats and not worry about what to do with their trimmings. Of course it is more sanitary now. During the war, that was the only bridge not bombed by Hitler, because he liked the bridge. There was a passage that the Medici's added to the top, that let them cross the river privately, to get to the other side to their other home.

After touring, we stopped at a little farm that has been growing olives and grapes as a family business for many years. They gave us a tour of their operation, how they worked, and we sat and ate dinner here, sampled their products and were very pleased with both. As they say at Campbell's Umm-Umm Good.

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Photos

Church and bell tower.
You can see it leaning and you can see after about the third level is when the engineers discovered they had a problem, and started to try and fix it, but making each layer stand a bit more vertical. That didn't work, but you can see the final architect tried to fix it at the top, notice how it looks out of line with the rest of the tower.. The first one took off when he saw what it was doing.

Up close and personal
Really not an A&M project.

Roman Empire was over by this time.
And, the Pisa people did not like Rome, and they recycled everything they could take down that looked like Rome. You can see they used some stones in the building of the church, some upside down, others in pieces. The scaffold is on the back side doing some cleaning.

The Choo-Choo train
The guide said we were going to ride a choo-choo train to get to the monument from the parking lot where the bus had to drop us off. Ok. See next picture.

Duomo in Florence
The Cathedral in Florence.

Inside the Duomo dome
You could walk to the top, but we thought the inside was prettier than the outside. Plus the line was long, steps and no elevator :-)

Entrance to the Palazzo Veccio
It started out as a Town Hall, but Cosimo Medici made it his personal palace. No wallpaper in this baby. Wall are all big huge paintings, as well as the ceilings.

Santa Croce
This church is also in Florence.

A family farm growing Olives and Grapes.
They produce their own oil and wine. The barrels are outside at the road to let you know when you arrive at their place.

Our farm house host telling us about the olives they grow.
They have been farming olives and grapes and have a very tasty product, both in wine and oil. We loved this down home small operation type of farm. They don't shake the trees to get the olives off, they pick them by hand, all the family pitches in, for 3 months of the year. Then two months to pick the grapes and start the wine process.

Showing us the machines used to make olive oil.
She explained the differences in naming the oil. The best oil is the "first cold press". I don't think I've ever seen it at HEB, but it does taste a lot better. We had some on our salad, along with the wine. Red, and white from their vineyard. Delicious. No, it isn't at HEB, or Spec's either.

The family business
The picture is not too far from what the place looks like today. Kids, all the family pitch in to pick the olives, and pick the grapes. No, they don't stomp the grapes.

Nothing like sitting at the table on the farm.
A very nice meal, very generous and very tasty. One of the best on the trip, and not a planned stop, but everyone said "YES" when presented with this option for "dinner on your own". Bene!