Pisa!

Well here I am at 4:45am on a Thursday morning. I'm sitting in the Pisa airport, checked in but waiting for the departure area to open so that I can get me and my bag scanned to go through to the waiting area. So while I wait I thought I would write a few things down while they are still fresh in my mind. My day in Florence ended quite well. I found a nice open-air restaurant and ate a nice pizza, not bad but a bit price at 8 euros I think, still very nice and I shouldn't complain, it was the heart of tourist country so-to-speak. I quite enjoyed walking around Florence, it was quite large and defintely not a place to bring your girlfriend unless a) she is blind, b) you control the credit card or c) you have lots (and lots) of money! The place is full of shopping and touristy things. Although it's not as bad as say Banff or Queenstown (the 2 locations I would call 'most touristy'.

Anyhow I took a few photo's of some handbag and shoe stores, although there were heaps and I saw plenty of women checking out these shops I was glad that I was on my own. I went through markets and shops and several parks and districts all very nice, but I think I walked 20 kilometres that day, most of it, just trying to find my hotel. But Florence was very nice. I would love to come back some day, but defintely not alone... either that or I will need to know more of the language to get more out of it.

Anyhow, yesterday morning I got up early (9am) and made my way to the Train station. I caught the first train to Pisa (10:30am) and even figured out how to buy a ticket from the vending machine and then get it validated by another one. Not that anyone asked me for a ticket again... I'm wondering, was I just un/lucky? or do they jus tno bother to even check the tickets...? Who knows... anyhow the trip into Pisa was nice, another lovely day and the train was pretty empty. I got off the train and walked north, as I knew that the Duomo (Cathedral) was North and besides that was the (Leaning) Tower of Pisa. I found that with a little walk of 1-2 kilometres and then circled town just once and found the Hotel I was staying at. Checked in and relived myself of my heavy bag. I think I had the smallest room in the hotel haha a single bed and a little 12" tv. Hell my bathroom was bigger than the rest of that room haha! But hey who cares, it was just somewhere for me to put my bag down so I could get out there and explore right!? And off I went again, probably the most unfashionable looking person in Pisa haha Damn those Italians dress smartly, like REAL smart - all the time it seems... even the Students dress smartly haha. It was actually seemed quite easy to spot the Italians from everyone else (other Tourists) as they were the ones who all looked like they had important jobs interviews to go to in 5 minutes :-) Pisa was lovely, great little medieveil streets, friendly people, I don't think I heard any yelling or fighting anywhere, and people walking and cycling everywhere, cars seemed quite rare... even public buses seemed more plentiful. So I had snapped some pics of the Leaning Tower and had a bit of a nosey at it up close, lovely juvely. I found a little town square and a place to sit, so I plonked myself down and gave myself a bit of a rest. A nearby Gelato place looked the business so I popped in and got a cone with two toppings, yoghurt and Mint flavours haha - wow it was actually very nice and just 1.20 euros :-) not bad! I also walked around the Duomo and made my way thorugh the crowds and around the paths. Luckily I wasn't badgered by the street sellers like some other people were, my half-tan and slightly tidy way of dressing may have made me look slightly inconspicuous after all :-)

After walking around Pisa for several hours, I was really starting to get a bit of a sore back, hips and legs. I'm pretty fit (well I was anyhow a month or two ago) but all this walking around has really blown me away. I need a good day or two off walking, to recover and to build up those muscles I think. Even sitting here in the airport I can feel my back hurting a little. I must have really covered some k's! Anyhow, so last night at about 6:30pm, my tummy tells me it's hungry and needed to be fed, so I went for a wander. I had noticed a couple of possible nice places for dinner. The favourite spot that I had picked was this amazingly back-alley little place with about 6 tables outside. I always think what or where my sister Michelle would go (as she bought me the tickets to come here) and this looked exactly like some crazy place that she would go (I'm a bit more 'mainstream and boring' so I try to change it up once in a while). There were abotu 2 tables free so I was going to just go and plonk myself down at a table is the practice here, but I thought I would go inside and get a drink first and ask for a table while I was there. Funnily enough, my little out of the way, back alley restarant was booked! arghh! can you believe it!? crazy. So in the end I decided to go to one of the rather large restaurants that the waiters run you down off the street to get you to come to their dodgy tourist based restaurant... it's not all that bad, at least you know they have a 'tourist' menu - basically a menu that is in English, and contains words like lasagna and pizza haha. Also those restaurants have waiters that speak a bit of English so you generally can't go wrong. Again I had some pizza, not as nice as the Florence pizza but nice all the same. Quite nice to have a pizza and beer and watching all the mad poms go past :-)

So after that it was actually getting a bit late (9pm) and so I got back to the hotel rather sleepy and sore. I dove into bed (there was nothing on telly - haha probably about 400 channels) and set my alarm for 3:45am - I got a nice sleep and when I woke up, the checkout process went very smooth and the hotel had a taxi coming for me in a few minutes to take me to the airport. I could have walked to the airport form the hotel, but it was 4am, and it was a bit of a hike. You just never know when you might get mugged or something, or worse I could've got lost, so I was glad for a ride in the end. Very nice.

So here I sit at the airport, it's now about 5:15am and I might go check to see if the departure gates are open yet. All in all I would summarise my two days in Italy as "Very nice". I think it would get that rating upgraded to something a LOT higher if I wasn't by myself, or I knew a bit more of the lingo. It would really just make these places that much more accessible and enjoyable. Nether-the-less it was still very much of an eye-opener and enjoyable as it was. I shall have to return one day.

Ciao
Matteo