Pisa
A mere 20 minutes away by train. Figuring a weekday might be a little less crowded (we’d read all those horror reviews!) and with trains going every hour or so, we booked for 10:42 am, then casually strolled the four minutes to the station — it’s a small, rural one with only a few platforms (binario) and one of those pedestrian bridges over the tracks (think train-spotters). Aspetto! … cosa! (Wait! … What!) the departures board was showing cancelled!! Noooo! Do we choose a different location? …. go by bus? The guy at the ticket office said there should be a train at 11:00 … watch the departures board. We stood undecided on the platform … pondering. Ten minutes later an announcement in Italian … Platform 1 West … YES! And so it was that 20 minutes later we pulled into unassuming Pisa station, disembarked with only two other people, and followed the signs to Torre Pendente. Sure enough, around a corner … there in the distance was THE TOWER of PISA …. how cool was that? Outside the walls souvenir kiosks had amassed like a giant obstacle course, competing with an inevitable McDonalds (yes, I’m sorry to say) but inside the gates there were NOT the throngs of people we were bracing for … at least not at the moment.
The Baptistry … like some gigantic and ornately iced panetone was the first building to greet visitors. It’s domed roof half grey slate, half red tile. Most of the populace made a beeline for the tower, we, on the other hand, opted to start with the Baptistry. A combination of both Romanesque and Gothic styles, surrounded with arches, columns and ‘lacy’ gables (which I’m informed are wimpergs). Inside, was no less impressive – vibrant stained glass windows vied with a magnificent pulpit and an upper circular balcony. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisa_Baptistery
The Duomo is very similar in style to the one in Lucca … such a different style from most in Italy. I won’t bore you with details, just put the link in for those who are interested https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisa_Cathedral The ceiling is carved wood and quite remarkable.
And then there’s that tower! You have to look in three directions at once to make sure you haven’t photo-bombed someone’s carefully choreographed Tik Tok, Facebook or What’s Ap unique take on “holding up the tower”. Balanced on fences and shoulders …. hair fluffed perfectly …. pout to camera just so! Goodness, how many millions of these photos are out there on the internet. We decided against paying for the privilege of climbing 300 winding, slippery, dizzying steps up (no hand rail) … and then down again. There are some fantastic towers in Lucca of equal height and probably better views too … and it’s not as though we wanted to test Galileo’s theory of dropping objects (it’s probably frowned on anyway). That lean is what people come for. The whole place is pretty astounding though, and most definitely worth a visit.
Feeling a bit peckish we hustled past the McDonald (doing a roaring trade in burgers and fries) and spotted Istanbul Doner Kebab across the street. Reviews all gave exceptional ratings, so we plonked ourselves down at a table and ordered one each. They were huge … filled with freshly roasted and shaved chicken, shredded lettuce, red cabbage, tomato, onion and spicy sauce. Scrumptious. The people over at McDonalds don’t know what they’re missing!
For a change we took the bus back … tickets purchased from the Tabacchi next door. Two ladies from the Netherlands also caught the bus. Now, you are supposed to validate your tickets as soon as you get on but none of us could figure out the procedure. We slotted, waved, scanned, folded the tickets … QR code up, and down. Laughing uproariously. A teenage girl was sitting beside us … earplugs in, eyes on her phone … oblivious. Finally, at the next stop the driver (with much eye rolling) put us out of our misery. It was a lovely scenic trip back … and we found one of the secret passages through the wall on our return.
