Today we caught an 8.30 train to Pisa. The sky was fairly grey but no rain luckily! We walked from Pisa station to the piazza dei Miracolei (square of miracles) where the tower is! We took some touristy photos of us with the tower (as promised!) and then went up the tower. They restored it from 1990-2001 so you can now climb up it as they have fixed it so the lean won't increase. The lean was corrected from 5.5 degrees to 5 degrees. As soon as I stepped inside the bottom I nearly fell over because your feet go on a funny angle! It messed with my head a bit climbing up too! The view from the top was pretty good but it was mainly interesting just experiencing the lean from the top. Overall though Pisa as a town is very touristy, so we had a quick look in the cathedral then made our way back to the station, enjoying some waffles on the way.
Once back in Florence we walked to Vivoli for a gelati but they are closed Mondays :( so we will have to go back tomorrow!! The sun was shining beautifully at this stage, so we took the opportunity to go up the tower at the Palazzo Vecchio (it was closed due to rain on Saturday). The view was so beautiful in the sunshine!! Then we went to Casa Buonarroti, Michelangelo's House. Here we saw some of his early works, and some rooms his great nephew dedicated to him after his death and had painted in his honour.
Then we went to Santa Croce, a church and museum complex. Michelangelo and Galileo are both buried here. Unbelievably, Michelangelo lived to 89 in the 1500s! We had a look in the museum and around the church. There was also a leather school attached to the building. I bought a sunglasses case. The most interesting part about the museum was learning about the floods here in November 1966. The water level ruined a lot of paintings in this museum but in the last 20 years they have been restored and you would never know. The floods caused a lot of damage throughout the whole city. But I knew it was time to leave when museum fatigue set in. Mum misread a sign that said 'St James the Great' and thought it said 'St James the goat'! So we decided to call it a day!!
Have been meaning to say too, we saw an Aussie school group at Pompeii nearly two weeks ago now. There was a mum and daughter on it as well. The same night as Pompeii we saw them again in sorrento. Then we saw them last week in Rome, then Saturday in Florence and now today in Pisa!!!!! How weird is that?! Wonder if they'll be in Verona and Milan when we are!
Went out for dinner tonight and the whole menu was in Italian so I had to go by the very little of it I've picked up here haha. But then there was a nice waiter wo helped us too :)
Love to all,
Claire
Xoxoxox
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