Final Europe trip, Post 5: Tuscany, Lucca, Pisa

After our two nights in Florence, on Wednesday morning we set off for the town of Lucca, near Pisa. We chose some random places on the map to direct our GPS to so that we could take a long, winding route through the beautiful region of Tuscany. During our drive, we saw endless hills and valleys patchworked with either tan-coloured fields of stubble, or green fields of crops, grapevines or olive trees. There were also frequent sunflower plantations.



One of the things we noticed in Italy was that a lot of street signs had the word "delle" on them, which turned out to mean something like "of the", but was quite exciting for our travelling companion! :) In the sweet little town in the mountains where we stopped for lunch, we took a photo of Delle beside a sign that had her name on it, at the start of a gorgeous little residential road with stone arches and house windows full of flowerpots.


In the afternoon, we stopped in a coastal town and walked along some cliffs above a beach, which was covered in brightly coloured umbrellas, towels and deck chairs, as well as many brown-skinned Italians wearing very little whilst engaging in the process of becoming even more roasted. The ocean was bright blue with big rocks jutting out of it near the water's edge, and the "sand" was mostly small grey rocks, although I think we did see actual sand in one part. After enjoying the seaside atmosphere for an hour or two, and eating some ice cream cones, we continued on to Lucca.



Lucca is a nice little town about 15 minutes away from Pisa, home of the Leaning Tower. As we neared Lucca, Delle gazed out the window at a town across an empty field from the road we were on, started commenting on the awesome domed roofs rising above the other buildings, and interrupted herself mid-sentence with a loud squawk along the lines of: "THERE'S THE LEANING TOWER!!!" And she'd recognised it because of its architectural appearance, not by the fact that it is leaning over!

Pisa is quite a small town and the Leaning Tower is just sitting casually in the middle of it, visible from a distance away as there are no other tall buildings, so it's quite a jolt to suddenly notice something so famous when you hadn't realised it was nearby - just like Ben and I felt when we happened to glimpse the silhouette of Stonehenge one night while driving along a random highway in England! (Re the other photo below - even in Italy, it appears that all roads don't actually lead to Rome??)



In Lucca, we stayed in a cute little B&B and walked in towards the centre of town to find some tea that evening. In order to avoid walking on the edge of the main road, which had very little space between the traffic zooming past and the wall beside the road, we ended up taking a rather adventurous route that included traipsing along an overgrown levy bank above peoples' back yards. This ended up only saving a block of roadside walking, but was rather fun anyway! That night we ate more yummy pizzas and other pizza-like things. :)



The next day, Thursday, we did the touristy Leaning Tower thing. :) It was an extremely hot day and the area around the tower was just like we remembered it being on our 2006 visit - persistent guys selling knock-off sunnies/watches/handbags etc from extremely temporary stalls (i.e. able to be picked up and run with should police appear), lots of tacky but amusing souvenirs such as leaning mugs and "David boxers", and hundreds of tourists posing for their cliched "look, I'm holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa" photos. This time I insisted on being one of them - something I hadn't done last time, and had resolved to wholeheartedly rectify on this visit. :)















There are a couple of other elaborate, very old buildings in the same place as the Leaning Tower too - a cathedral and a baptisery. Delle paid to go inside both of them while Ben and I just wandered around the nearby streets and markets, but none of us actually climbed the Leaning Tower. Perhaps it's a good example of supply and demand in action when it costs three times as much to climb the tower as it does to go inside the other less-famous buildings! Or maybe it's just to cover the insurance in case it topples over... :)



After a few hours in Pisa, it was time to head to the airport for our RyanAir flight back to Frankfurt Hahn, where we'd left our car. By that night we had collected Dotti and her brother Lachlan, had a couple of fairly hilarious (in hindsight) car-related misadventures, and arrived at convention in Germany. More on all of that next time!