Rome: Traveling to Florence and Pisa

Wednesday was going to be a full day of travel by train, foot and taxi. When we were planning this trip to Italy, we considered a day trip to Pompeii. However, we quickly realized that there wouldn't be time. But when we were looking at our overnight trip to Florence, we noticed that Pisa was only 30 minutes away by train, and this would be a great opportunity to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. So we checked-out of the hotel in Rome and took a taxi to the train station, but not before the hotel doorman almost got into a fight with another taxi driver who tried get us to take his taxi. Once at the train station, we ate breakfast at McDonald's and watched for our train to arrive. When they showed which platform it was on, we walked to the train and boarded, finding our seats with no problem.

We were on the high-speed Eurostar train, and it took about 90 minutes to get to Florence. The seats were comfortable and I spent my time listening to music and looking out the window at the hillsides. It was very green in Italy, and there was a dash of Fall colors in the trees. Once we arrived at Florence, we first looked at the train schedule to Pisa. There was a train leaving within an hour, so we bought four tickets. The train stations have a place where you can leave you baggage, for a fee, which we did since the hotel was far away and we didn't want to carry our bags. When the train arrived, we found seats in the second class car. This train was not as nice as the Eurostar, and we soon had our first encounter with a "pick-pocket", which we were warned about at the ticket booth.

Shortly after we left the station, a man came in the car holding some sheet of paper, and held it in front of my sister, who kept saying "No!". Luckily, Lorie saw him reaching for her purse and she jumped up and said "get out". The man refused and my brother, who is 6'4", like me, stood up and told him to leave his wife alone. The man still didn't leave for a moment, but then walked into the next car. I just sat there watching the whole event, kind of in shock, but ready to jump in if need be, also being much taller than the would-be-thief.

The train trip was uneventful after that. This was a local train, so it stopped several times before arriving at Pisa. Once there, we looked at a map of the city and decided the tower was within walking distance. So we headed through the middle of town, and arrived at the entrance to the plaza in about 20 minutes. The weather cleared up and it was sunny but still cold. After a few photos of the tower, we bought our tickets for the tour of the tower. The tour consisted of a half-hour time slot to walk up the steps, spend time at the top, and walk back down. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is not all that tall, so the hike up the steps wasn't to hard, just a little narrow near the top. It was interesting, while walking up you couldn't tell the tower was leaning, but on the "down" side of the tower, you ended up walking on the outside of the walkway, and on the "up" side of the tower, the worn path was on the inside.

Once at the top, the 360 degree view of Pisa was amazing. Unlike Rome, it was sunny and clear. You could see snow of in the distance mountains, and all the colorful buildings of Pisa were clearly visible. I had left my jacket in the lockers so I wouldn't have to carry it (and my umbrella, which I didn't need), so I was a little cold, but it was worth it. I took many photos and another movie at the top. We then walked back down and retrieved our stuff from the lockers. After somehow getting separated from everyone else after using the restroom, we all met back up, walked around the plaza looking for a place to eat. I bought my one souvenir here, a "leaning shot glass". There were lots of "leaning" gifts to buy. There were no food places inside, so we started walking back the way we came until we found a place to eat. We ended up at a cafe, and had a light lunch. The walk back to the train station was short, so we took our time, looking at the stores along the car-free street. Our train arrived on time and this time it was more crowded, but there were no beggars on board looking for free money.

We got back to Florence before our hotel shuttle pickup time, so we wandered around Florence to get an idea of what we were going to do tomorrow. We had intended to take a hop-on-hop-off bus, but we never did find where to buy the tickets. But after walking through the city for 30 minutes, we realize that everything we wanted to see was within walking distance of the train station. I snapped a few photos, and we walked through a street bazaar, and then back to the station to retrieve our bags. We didn't know where to catch the shuttle, but found a place where hotel shuttles were stopping. After an hour of waiting, we realized that our Sheraton shuttle was not arriving. So another taxi it was. He sped off and got us to our hotel, which was way outside the city.

After checking in, we were ready for dinner. There was nothing near the hotel, so we were forced to eat at the hotel restaurant, which had just opened at 7 PM. Being the only customers, we had two waiters, who attended to us non-stop, constantly switching out our silver ware, based on what we ordered. We first ordered wine, beer and bottled water. We all got the vegetable soup, which was really tasty. I forget what my main course was, but the desert was also good. As we ate, other customers arrived, all business men sitting alone. It was very quite, and we were the only ones talking, so these men were apparently listing to our conversation because we were the most interesting people there.They all heard our conversation with the waiter about a special Tuscan lemon drink. They said one drink would warm you up and two would guarantee you an enjoyable evening. Karen and Lorie each bought one, but I ended up drinking most of theirs. The drink was maybe two ounces, and it seemed to get stronger as you drank it. The alcohol must have sunk to the bottom of the glass. It was rather good and did warm my insides.

This was the most expensive dinner so far, but worth the price for the food and convenience. Back in our room we turned on the TV to see the news about the bombings in India. BBC and CNN were having non-stop coverage of this breaking-news event. Since we had to get up early, I turned the TV off to get some sleep. However, I learned that it is not good to watch news about death and destruction before going to bed. It took me almost an hour to fall asleep, with the disturbing images fresh in my head. The next morning there was a newspaper from New York, and the story about the attack was the fourth article on the front page. The story about the beagle that won the dog show was a bigger headline.