Today was an absolutely awesome day! We got to see a lot of
natural beauty, man manufactured beauty, have beautifully delicious food, and
beautiful relaxation time. This was one of my favorite days of the trip so far
and am excited to see what we will be doing the rest of the trip.
First we had the best breakfast of the trip so far at 8am
this morning with freshly made breads and other goodies. Then we had a nice four
hour bus ride to Pisa. I know that a bus ride may sound kind of boring, but I
really enjoyed it a lot. It was nice to just get to relax, watch the scenery go
by, and go into my own world in my audiobook when I wanted to. It was one of
the most relaxing times that I have had on my trip thus far. When we finally
arrived in Pisa, we were shuttled over to Piazza dei Miracoli which is the
location of The Leaning Tower of Pisa.
It was really cool to see how it looks
so good after they finished stabilizing, cleaning, and restoring it. It
exceeded my expectations by far; the whole area was very nice and well
maintained. We got there around lunch time and our appointment to go to the
tower was not until later, so we had a few hours to eat lunch, buy souvenirs,
and take pictures with it.
Lunch was an interesting experience for a reason completely unrelated
to any type of problem that you would typically associate with a restaurant and
eating there. I ordered a pizza and while we were waiting for our food to be
delivered, one of the waiters dropped a glass and it broke over in the kitchen
area. I didn’t think too much about it and even made a joke about it. Then our
food was delivered and I started cutting my pizza (they don’t cut the pizza for
you over here). I started eating it and got about one-fourth to one-third of
the way through and I noticed that there was something clear and jagged looking
on my plate. My first thought was how a piece of ice got onto my tray, since
they don’t seem to have ice very much over here either and no one at my table
had any, so I picked it up. To my surprise, it was not a piece of ice, but a
chunk of glass, about 1 cm2 in size, had made its way onto my pizza!
I showed my friends at our table and so then I checked over the rest of my
pizza to make sure it didn’t have any on it, and was okay to eat. We were
trying to think of how it could have gotten onto my pizza, and then I connected
the dots; that there had been that glass broken not too long before my pizza
was brought over to me, and that was the only reasonable explanation. I eat the
rest of my pizza, being extra careful just in case there was another piece that
I missed, but it seems to have been fine. After my meal I showed it to the
waiter, and he was very apologetic, and I think he realized where it had come
from, so they gave me my meal for free. I was okay with a free meal, since
there didn’t seem to be any damage done.
Then we went looking around at all the shops and took some
fun pictures and some cliché photos in front of it. Then we met up with
everyone and Rae did her presentation on The Leaning Tower of Pisa. There were
many different efforts in construction and after completion to correct the
lean, but all were fruitless until the last one where they excavated the land
and removed enough to stabilize it, so now it is stuck at a 4° tilt. Then we got walk up
to the top of the tower, and this was more exciting than you would think, because
although 4°
doesn’t sound like a lot, it is very noticeable when you are walking up and
down the stairs. When you were on one side, you would be leaning back trying to
walk up the stairs, and when you were on the other side, you would be falling
forward up the stairs. Oscillating back and forth like this made me feel kind
of loopy, but it was certainly entertaining. The view from the top was
fantasitic; you could see Pisa all the way to the mountain ridges. It was fun
just to walk around it feeling the tilt of it and seeing the displacement of it
all the way at the top; I believe it was about 3.9 meters displacement.
After we had finished our time up on the tower, we went over
and toured the Duomo and Baptistery of the complex. They were both were
interesting because they had been built slowly over different time periods and
styles of architecture, so it made an interesting conglomeration. There were
aspects of Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic all in this one building. They
also apparently reused some of the marble from other buildings to construct it,
because there were inscriptions chiseled into some of the blocks used on the outside
that were oriented differently than they were on their previous building. The Baptistery
was interesting because it had a dome that had some interesting acoustical
properties to it. People were just whispering in there and it was so loud it
there, and then they have a guy come in to sing a few notes because the sound lingers
and echoes so long, he could do harmony with himself. It was pretty neat.
Then we hung around a little longer so that people could get
all their shopping done and get any more photos they wanted. Then we shuttled
back to the bus and were off again, this time to San Gimignano.
This is was another
two hour bus ride and was very relaxing after being out in the hot sunny
weather today. The terrain and scenery in the Tuscany region is absolutely
beautiful with the rolling hills, vineyards, trees, and Italian style
homesteads. It is so calm, peaceful, and serene. When we finally arrived in
this smaller Tuscan town, it seemed that way as well. Here we have a very nice
hotel that is right off the town center square. We hiked up here to the hotel
through the small streets because it would have been a little difficult for the
bus to maneuver this. Then we had a little time to settle into our hotel before
we had supper in the hotel on the top floor. They make their own wine here in
San Gimignano, so we had to try some of it with supper.
Tonight was one of our
group dinners, so we had a delicious four course dinner of some kind of rice
and vegetables, ravioli, peppered boar meat (I think), and strawberry crème dessert.
This was probably my favorite meal of the trip so far because it was so good
and it was also extremely filling! I fully enjoyed every minute of it, and I didn’t
even mention the beautiful view that we had atop the hotel which is on top of a
hill! You could see down into one of the valleys around San Gimignano, and the
lovely countryside. It was so serene and nice change of pace from all the
extremely chaotic, tourist filled cities that we had visited. If I were to take
a vacation to Italy, I would definitely choose this to be the place; it seems
so relaxing and magnificent.
After the awesome dinner we had, I headed down to our room
and got to work on updating my photos and this journal/blog and just had a good
time reminiscing on a good day in Tuscany, Italy!
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