Advertisement
Published: June 14th 2017
Edit Blog Post
Geo: 43.7161, 10.3966
What is it with the Tuscans and towers?
Packing up was fairly fast, and we were on the road and leaving Castelmuzio before 9am. We drove to San Gimignano, the "medieval Manhattan", famous for the towers that dominate the skyline. The town is almost a perfectly preserved medieval village, as it was on the main road to Rome at that time, and when the route changed, the town was not renovated or rediscovered for some hundreds of years! The towers were built by competing families - the medieval status symbol, apparently! It is a lovely town, if completely dominated by (English) tourists! We spent a nice couple of hours, looking at tourist shops, wandering the narrow alleys and enjoying the views from the town to the Tuscan countryside. After a sit down, a cold drink (and a porchetta Panini to keep us going!), we headed off again – this time, on a winding country road to Pisa. It was a stunning route, though clearly not a main road into Pisa.
Pisa….what an unusually ugly Italian town! When people tell you to go to Pisa for only one or two hours, listen to them! We had decided that it was a convenient
stopping point, on our route to Switzerland, and whilst the location was about right, in terms of driving time, we found the accommodation ridiculously expensive, for the quality. Let's just say that, when we arrived at our hotel, just down the road from the main tourist attraction, I suggested to Steven that we leave our bags in the car until we checked the rooms! Even having booked the hotel, I wasn't yet convinced that we'd be staying. After a little negotiation with the host (“no, a quad room is NOT the same as a double and a triple room – for a start, there are 5 of us!) But, thank goodness, we were roomed in the annex of the hotel, in a newer building across the road, and it was clean and neat and very convenient. We walked out the door, and were at the Leaning Tower within 5 minutes!
At first sight, the Tower (whilst certainly leaning) was smaller than I had imagined, but it may have been an optical illusion. We hadn't planned to climb the Tower, which has been closed for years whilst they stabilized it, but it has recently reopened – but children under 8 years old
are not permitted to climb the Tower, and it wasn't fair that only some of us go up (especially as some of the rest of the family are “not good with heights” and it was 15 Euro per person to go up). Instead, we went to the Campo Santo (the old graveyard, which is quite spectacular), the Baptistery (rather plain, but we got to go up inside it) very quickly, as there was a baptism in 10 minutes, and into the Duomo, which was lovely, but we have become a little blasé about amazing Italian cathedrals!
We then went for a wander to see what else Pisa has to offer. Short answer – nothing! Either we didn't find it, or this is a town without lovely squares, pretty churches – instead, it is dominated by dodgy African street vendors and dirty students. But maybe I am being harsh – we were quite tired, and hadn't really had lunch as we had a snack at 11am then didn't feel like eating.
By 6pm, we'd found a pizza restaurant, and had a nice meal – little disappointed to find, when the bill came, that they charged 10% service (tip) as well as “bread and
water per head” which is also how the Italians charge a tip! One or the other is normal, but I've never heard of asking for both! But some lovely sunset views of the Tower (at 9pm!) then a short walk home to bed!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.181s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0536s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb