Honeymoon Part VIII

Thursday, August 18, 2011

We never made it to Uffizi yesterday, so we went to bed with every intention to get up at 7am and be over there around 8. Instead, we ended up getting there around 9:45am and the line was crazy long, so we spent 8 Euros extra per ticket to get in early with a reserved ticket.

When we got in, we had baby Frommer's with us, which actually has a little guide to Uffizi, and Jason was using that to guide us through. Our tastes and Frommer's tastes must be much different though because some of the things he gave 3 stars to were not very impressive to us. I mostly enjoyed the sculptures, most of which had really long toes. I also liked a couple portraits of Martin Luther and a couple paintings of old people. As per usual in Florence, pictures are not allowed, so we started our day out on a way to another 30 picture day.

After Uffizi, we got a book about it since we couldn't take pictures, grabbed a quick bite to eat, took pictures of Hercules and fake David in the Piazza and headed back to our hotel. All we needed at the hotel was to drop the book off and grab our flex rail pass.

As we headed back to the train station we decided to check out a grocery store. Of course, Jason wanted grapes, then we found strawberry and chocolate milk, followed by the cookie aisle, and really cheap iced tea. We finally found them in the cold case for .58 Euros, when we've been paying 2-3 Euros for them. We also got a Magnum White Chocolate to try and everything cost us 6.40 Euros altogether.

At the train station, while stading in line for ticket service, I found coaster and sent Jason to check them out since we hadn't gotten any coaster yet in Italy. He bought the coasters, which are made of leather (or fake leather) and say Firenze.

When we finally got to the ticket counter, past the departure of the train we wanted on, we found out there were two more departing in the next hour and they are local trains so we could just hop on. So we found the right train to get us to Pisa and after one of the sweatiest 90 minutes of my life we arrived in Pisa at about 3pm.

We walked towards where all the touristy stuff is and after about 15 minutes had our first glimpse of the tower. As we continued walked towards the tower, we saw some postcards, but decided to get some later. There were a lot of bicycle rentals, the kind of bikes like at the Weinhard Hotel, and there were horse and buggies available too like in Florence. Randomly, there were also a lot of hamburger stands in Pisa.

As we approached the tower, it was leaning in our direction so you didn't notice the lean as much as if we had approached it from another direction. We went to the tower because there wasn't a line, but we were sent to a ticket office where you purchase tickets to all of the attractions. So we got tickets for 7:40pm to the tower because that was the earliest time available, and we got tickets for the cathedral and baptistery as well. We went to the cathedral first and it was pretty much the same as most of the cathedrals in Europe that we've seen. Gaudy with lots of unnecessary things.

After the cathedral, we went to the baptistery. It didn't seem like much. Just a big building to get baptized in. We read that the placement of it is important because it opens to a path leading directly into the church, so after someone is baptized, he or she can then have a straight path to the church. We weren't blown away though until one of the workers asked for silence and started to sing. The acoustics in there were crazy! There was a really appealing echo, particularly for Gregorian chants. Jason though that might be his favorite part of our honeymoon so far.

We had time to kill before we could go see Pisa, so we walked along the lines and lines of tourist shops. Mostly we were hoping to find coasters, but I ended up finding a knife that was also a lighter and another lighter with the leaning tower on it.

Then, we decided we should find a place to cool down and hydrate. We went to a pizzeria, but it was like 6 and they said pizza isn't served until 7. Se we ordered salads and water. We ate inside, where it was much cooler, and had the coldest water of our trip so far. It helped us to cool off and then we got our appetite back, so we order lasagna and more amazingly cold water. The lasagna was good, but those 2 liters of water we had were some of the best drinks of my life because it was so refreshing.

It was only 7 by now and we went to look in the official souvenir shop. We got some postcards here and almost got a crucifix as well. However, it was 21 Euros and we decided against it. Then we got in line for the leaning tower.

When we started to climb the stairs it was very disorienting. Far more so than either of imagined it may be. At certain points, even though the stairs were going up, it felt as though we were walking down or at least level. We stopped about halfway up and enjoyed the view from there for a few minutes, then continued to the top. When at the top it really seemed like the tower shouldn't be able to stand. The lean was obvious and it was a bit nerve racking. Then, we found out there were even more stairs to a higher point. They were also very narrow.

On our way back to the rail station, we caught a whiff of burgers cooking and couldn't resist. It actually tasted incredibly good at that moment. When we got to the station we reserved tickets for the 8:10 train to Roma from Firenze. When we got back to our hotel we packed and went to sleep because of the early morning ahead of us.