Primo Viaggio (First Trip!)

Our first trip I took was to....drum roll please 

PISA!!

NBD just holding up the Leaning Tower of PISA

Pisa was a sweet experience for a first trip.  While living in the middle of nowhere Italy Tuscania, in order to travel anywhere we have to complete the following. First take the bus from Tuscania to Viterbo or Tarquinia.  Then when we get there, we have to take a local bus to the train station! 

Tarquinina Train Station

Cookies& Cream and Strawberry

  




Luckily, since my roommate and I were taking our sweet time to get to the bus, we were able to skip out on all of the confusing bus transfers and what not and had to call Massimo the crazy driver that I talked about earlier to rescue us and pay 40 euros to drive us 15 minutes.  After the 2.5 hour train ride to Pisa we finally get around 2:00 ate and had my first GELATO experience! :) !!!!!!!

The "View of the Tower" from the Terrace (All 2 feet)

After navigating around Pisa with a little hand drawn map from our personal tour guide Allison (a.k.a Rick Steves), we made it to the general area of Bed and Breakfast -but we were still lost and confused. OH! For those who don't know who Rick Steves is, I believe he is known for traveling around the world, and writes travel guides for others? I didn't know who he was until Pisa.

THEN, some how our B&B lady flagged us down (maybe it was because my hot pink North Face screams "Im American"?!?) from the terrace where we will eat breakfast the following morning -which may I add- stated in the description for the hostel/b&b a view of the Tower can be seen while eating on the terrace.....hah some view.  Anyways, we drop our stuff off and hit up the streets of Pisa.  I pretty much bartered with every vendors on the street- I felt like I was at the flea marker, but here I was actually getting what I wanted!

Pisa is very touristy, but still filled with tons of history.  The next morning, we woke up bright and early, ate our complimentary breakfast (packaged croissants and coffee-I just had an apple because I’m not a coffee person) and became educated about Pisa- specifically the “Field of Miracles”.  Allison bought the tickets (because we were all lazy to get out of bed) to hike up the Tower, enter the Baptistery and walk in cemetery- but we go in the Duomo for free.  

View from Top of the Tower!

According to Rick Steves, there is a symbolic centrality of the Field of Miracles in the theological life of a Pisan. They were born in the hospital (now a museum), baptized in the baptistery, married in the Duomo, celebrated at the Tower, and buried in the cemetery.

Crossing the Arno River

Me on top of Pisa!

 

The  tower of Pisa: I know everyone knows its leaning but that thing is FOR REAL leaning, I felt like I was in a ancient medieval fun house walking up all 294 stairs of it!  At one point, I thought I was in a scene of "The Mummy" because the walls were getting so close to each other, I thought I was going to get smushed! But at the top, the 360 view of Pisa was definitely worth it.

 

The Duomo wasn’t just a chucrh, it was art, everything about it was Beautiful, even the doors had really cool artwork on them, we weren’t allowed to take pictures because there was mass going on, but it has been one of the prettiest things I have seen while in Italy so far!  The Romanesque style of pillars and the paintings on the walls and the engraved ceilings really gives you chills when seeing it all.

The Duomo!

 

The Baptistery was interesting, very plain, but the 200 foot diameter of the dome is crazy, every 30 minutes the security guard comes out and sings a few notes from “Ave Maria” very cool.  Thanks to Rick Steves, we knew to stick around to listen to the remarkable sounds it can produce.

The Baptistry!

One side of the Cemetary- Graves are in the Ground

 The Cemetery had a ton of cool graves around and artwork of course, not my favorite, but a good touristy thing to do while in Pisa.

 

After everything, we made our way back to the train, had Massimo pick us up AGAIN because the busses don’t run on Sundays, and relaxed the rest of the day.

I think I spent less that 100 euros, so it was a successful in-expensive weekend :)

Ciao!

Another Day another Adventure!