Day 14 – Pisa
at 4.39pmA leisurely breakfast and a short walk to the train station started our day today. It is still very hot but wasn’t so bad in the morning sun. Pisa is about an hour’s train journey and free with our rail passes.
What the guidebooks, and a man we spoke to in Florence, said about Pisa was true – there really is nothing of note there except the tower. Although tourist information gave us a map detailing about 30 ‘places of interest’ in the old city it soon became apparent that they were pretty desperate for things to show off.
Nonetheless we headed for the cathedral and its famous bell tower. The cathedral consists of 3 buildings, the cathedral itself, the baptistry and the bell tower. All three of these lean to a certain extent though none is more pronounced than the tower. Apparently the tower started to lean just 2 years after construction began with only 3 of its 7 floors complete. It could be called a major cock-up but it was an ingenious way of attracting tourists to a frankly otherwise unremarkable cathedral easily surpassed by that of Florence (or even Gloucester) for example.
Despite my skepticism I still enjoyed it and we had a nice bowl of pasta, next to it, for lunch. After that we viewed some more of Pisa’s ’sights’ and headed back to the train station.
Another ice cream awaited us at Florence and a bit more of a wander around. Dinner consisted of salami sandwiches and then a, most importantly, cool and relaxing evening.