So of course the day started out with a transportation strike. All our taxis cancelled on us at 5am. What was supposed to be a day of sleeping in turned into a VERY early wake up call. The bus strike was going to hit at 8:30am sharp, so we woke everyone up at 6 & told them to be ready to go by 7:30 otherwise they wouldn't be going to Pisa or Florence. After a very late night of eating TONS of food, that was NOT very fun. But once again, small miracles happened, & all 19 of us were ready to go to the bus stop by 7:30.
We walked to the bus stop around the corner, & got everybody WITH LUGGAGE on the bus. This time, we tried to be smart & only packed minimal luggage. Some were able to fit it in backpacks, others in small carryons. For 19 people we had about 4 suitcases, a duffle, & the rest were backpacks. We had another 24 hours of train traveling & we learned our lesson in Pompeii. . . pack light or lug it around.
I was still enjoying the beautiful bus stops around Rome . . .
We arrived at Rome Termini station ready for a fun day of traveling to Pisa & Florence. Luckily, we pre-bought our train tickets from Rome Termini to Pisa because the train was completely sold out. I call that another little miracle on our trip. Everyone in our family group was sitting next to strangers for the 2.5 hour ride, but we made it. Almost everybody slept since we were so tired. I didn't get a chance to sleep. I sat next to a very friendly lady from Australia who wanted to tell me her life story & obviously just needed someone to listen to her. I will admit, at first I was annoying because I was beyond exhausted, but as I got to know her, she reminded me of my dear friend Nancy & listening to her stories made me smile. People are amazing. I love learning about others & hearing their triumphs & sorrows. I love seeing what makes them tick & what they are passionate about. This particular woman was a musician & was learning piano. It was fun talking to her.
Once we arrived at the Pisa train station, Trek, Tuhk, Dad, & Cadence took all the luggage to a storage area & then we walked towards the city center.
After walking about 2 miles & crossing a beautiful bridge, we found the famous leaning tower of Pisa. It's pretty much the only thing there other than homes. But it is spectacular.
We spent quite a bit of time just walking around the grounds & enjoying the beautiful tower, cathedral, & baptistry. All of them were gorgeous marble buildings.
But of course we wanted to climb to the top! Kids 8 & under couldn't go up so Opa stayed at the bottom with Bridger & Olive, but the rest of us decided to climb.
I don't ever get scared on these types of things. I love climbing hundreds of steps. . . we do it all over Europe, it makes everything an adventure, but this was trippy. I was a little bit terrified as we went up. Because of the "lean" of the tower, it gave you really bad vertigo as you climbed. You would "fall forward" as you rounded one side, & then as you made your way around, all of sudden you felt as if you were "falling backwards." And you continued this back & forth feeling of motion sickness the entire way up 300 stairs to the top. I didn't realize how much of a lean there really was, but it made me really sick.
From the top the view was gorgeous. Of course as soon as we got up there, it started to rain pretty hard & there was no covering over us, but it was so hot outside we didn't even care. It was a great way to cool down.
We had fun walking around the top looking at all the bells & beautiful carvings. The marble was a little slippery from all the rain, but we were practically the only people up there so it was really cool.
Coming down was a lot faster than going up. It still gave us that weird leaning vertigo, but it was easier & faster so we didn't notice it as much.
Once we were back on solid ground, we still felt like we were leaning a little bit. It was so weird.
Next we visited the cathedral which was gorgeous.
The kids really liked the dead body/skeleton at the front of the altar.
I think everyone enjoyed that this cathedral was cool inside because of the marble. It felt good to just sit without the sun beating down on us.
We also laughed at all the "OPA" signs in the area. I think OPA might mean something religious because we found it everywhere in this cathedral & on other cathedrals in Rome.
The baptistry was also beautiful. It was closed so we weren't able to go inside, but the outside was gorgeous.
And then of course we had to go & take all of our "leaning" pictures so we could say we'd been to the leaning tower. You feel like an idiot posing for these pictures, but the kids got a kick out of it.
After fully enjoying our leaning tower experience, we walked back toward the train station & found a cute little gelato shop.
And with it being nearly 100 degrees out, we HAD to get some yummy gelato. I got salted caramel & it was FABULOUS.
We crossed back over the bridge & made it safely back to the Pisa train station.
and waiting as most of the grown ups went to pick up the luggage so we could be on our way.
From here, we hopped on yet another hour long train, but this time
to Florence!
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