Pisa for a minute

Ok, so most everyone has seen a photo of the leaning tower, but we had a chance to see it in person and took it. We needed to transfer trains in Pisa on our return from Florence. JJ went on ahead, she had seen. Jo, Charmelle , and I grabbed a later train (40 minutes later) and jumped into a taxi. 10-minutes later, we are at the tower. We took a quick walk around it and snapped some photos and then back in a taxi to get our train.

We got to the train station and realized there were 2 trains heading to La Spezia, which is where we needed to get our last train back to Manarola. We hustled and jumped on the earlier train (quite literally). One thing that brought us a little drama is, Jo forgot to validate the ticket. She tried to jump off really quickly and validate it, but the conductor yelled for her to get back on. So we took the 150€ gamble. Of course the conductor came through as soon as the train started moving. My heart skipped a beat. Jo acted like she was asleep and he just kept walking. I think he realized what happened and let us off. At the next stop, Jo jumped off and validated the ticket and jumped back on.

We got to La Spezia and again were able to get a quick transfer and we were on the way back to Manarola. We were all hungry, a bit tired, but happy. We were running earlier than we had told JJ. So we weren't sure how we were going to connect with her. In the States, we would just send a text and tell her. Here we don't have that option. I switched my phone to a European carrier and Charmelle's phone will work for an international charge. However Jo and JJ didn't have that option. So it was going to come down to a game of "rock, paper, scissors" to see which one of us went up the hill to get JJ.

We arrived in Manarola and the train heading back to La Spezia had people nearly hanging out of it, because it was so full. The vacationers were all heading home. The conductors were outside the train looking for gaps inside and telling people to move closer.

As we made our way to the stairs at the station, JJ came walking up behind us! We were all on the same train. Her train had been delayed and we were early, so it all worked out. That meant, head to the "take away" pizza place, and head to the apartment. We sat on our terrace eating pizza, and enjoying the view. What a nice end to a great day.

Off to Florence

We took a 2-hour train ride over to Florence to go to the Galleria Academia. The big reason to go there is to see Michael Angelo's "David." It was worth the trip! He is magnificent. I have seen many photos and drawings of this sculpture, but nothing does it justice. No...not even the one in Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. The fact the artist could get such detail with the tools of that time is amazing. The veins and muscles in the statue are so lifelike. I kept waiting for David to turn his head and look at everyone.

The Galleria also had some other great works both paintings and sculptures. They were all wonderful, but David really is the showcase piece. The one thing that was really tacky was this replica in the courtyard. The same size as the original, but pink skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. It was disturbing to say the least.

After the Galleria, we set out to wander a little. Of course, we found a nice little Irish pub to stop and rehydrate. I even had some beer! It was hotter than hot in Florence and a Shanty (lager and lemonade) sounded a lot more refreshing than just water. We also grabbed some crisps and peanuts to carry us through the rest of our time in Florence.



We started heading to the famous bridge with all the gold vendors. For some reason the name escapes me right now, but it is pretty cool. Way too many people for all of us. After being in Gimmelwald and Cinque Terre, a city is just over the top. We had better get used to it. We're heading to Barcelona in a couple of days.