Our Quick Trip Up To See Florence and the Leaning Tower of Pisa

We headed our on our trip north to Florence leaving our new “home” here in Rome at 9 am. We had already made a dry run the day before so we learned how to take a bus to the subway and then over to the train station. We had decided we would take one of the high speed trains which would get us the 200 miles in a little over an hour! You really can’t tell that the train is doing almost 200mph, crazy. We got there in one piece and headed out of the station looking for our hotel. It was only a 15 minute walk but we got a little lost so more like half an hour, no problem. As we headed up the stairs Leiann says oh I forget to tell you it’s three floors up, no elevator. And we are talking a two hundred year old building with really high ceilings so more like six stories up. Breathing hard by the time we got to the desk, we got checked in no issues, yeah. We rested for an hour and then headed out to explore. On our way to our hotel we had already ran into the “Duomo”, the most famous site in Florence. Literally it means “The Dome”. It is a huge over four hundred feet tall, church in the center of town, built completely of marble, with a massive dome in the center. Be sure to check out the photos in the gallery because words just can’t explain this thing. We have seen a lot of churches and always think you can’t top that and then we find something else that blows us away, as the “Duomo” did. We jumped on the hop on, hop off bus as we often do to get the layout of the town and target places we will want to see. We don’t have a lot of time here, but we do not want to rush around trying to see everything. We want it to be relaxed and we see what we see. We ended up having lunch sitting next to the “Duomo” in the big square, with a guy playing classical guitar on the street that echoed off the walls, nice. We called it a night after having some, of all things in Italy, some Mexican food. The next day we still have the remainder of 24 hrs on the hop on, hop bus, so jumped back on and now rode it up to a pictures place overlooking Florence. We then walked up to a church that is said to be the favorite church of Galileo, who had a house not far away and is where he last lived and died. The church is distinct in that is has a white marble staircase that is remarkable. Speaking of Galileo, we did not know quite what the allure of Florence was other than people said it was beautiful and that we should go there. We found out that many of the European Renascence masters were born here, lived here, or visited here when Florence was the capital of Italy and a mecca for artists. Michelangelo was here. We are told that his father was not happy that his son was wanting to be a sculptor, which he thought to be a glorified lowly stone mason. Little did his father know that one day his son would sculpt the “David”, displayed here in Florence, decidedly one of the greatest sculptures of all time. He also painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel here in Rome. Leonardo Da Vinci was here along with Dante, Botticelli, Brunelleschi and many others. So the city is filled with beautiful churches and other examples of fine architecture made of stunning Carrara marble along with statues, paintings, parks and beautiful villas that the rich citizens of Florence built for their enjoyment. We were told that Michelangelo said that he could see David in the 15ft tall solid marble stone before he started sculpting and that he merely cut away all that was not him and freed the statue from the stone. We spent the rest of the day walking the streets of Florence and trying to take a little of it with us. We caught the train headed to Pisa where our friends Lina and Enzo met us at the station. We had not seen them for three years. We met in the jungles of Panama when we stayed at the “Wundebar Hostel”. They were touring Central America heading north and us south. At the time we never thought we would see each other again. We have this experience on a fairly regular basis, thanks to Face Book, we are able to stay in touch we those we meet and plan rendezvouses They took us to see the Pisa. There is a very tall wall around the center of Pisa where the tower is at, like thirty feet, so you do not see the tower until you walk around the corner of the gate and then “Bam” there it is. The tower is actually part of a large church. I never seemed to get that in pictures I have seen of it. The church and tower sit inside this large walled area of about four football fields. Around the church and tower is very green well maintained grass field, so that the white church and tower really stand out. The church and tower are made of gray/white marble. At first impression they do not seem real, more like a picture and hard to describe, other then to say not how it looks in the picture. Also the tower leans much more than we thought. In reading about it I learned that during construction after it started leaning construction was stopped for some time. Later they started again with a solution to stop the leaning, bend the tower backward as they went up! So if you look closely you can see the tower is bent backward like a banana. Finally they built the top “cap” and made it 90 degrees so the top would be straight while the rest of it leaned. However after the cap was completed the tower leaned a little more so even it is not straight. The reason the tower leaned in the first place is that the entire area of Pisa (and much of the coastal area) is barely above sea level and once was a swamp. In addition to the soft ground the tower is hollow like a tube and has a very small footprint foundation. I just wonder what the folks in the day were saying about the architects and builders, must have been a constant source of amusement. Afterward Lina and Enzo took us to their home and made us an amazing dinner of traditional Italian foods. Like most Italians they tried to get us to eat more then we needed. We spent two days with them enjoying the beach and then they took us on an amazing tour into the mountains where Carrara Marble is mined. When you look up to the mountains from the beach you can see all the mines of white marble. When we can came up to visit them and see the leaning tower we never thought about or even herd about Carrara. Most of the marble used in Rome and elsewhere in Italy is mined here. And it is famous around the world. It has been mined here for thousands of years. Michelangelo’s David’s marble came from here as most all statues in Italy, who knew. After a day of being our tour guides we had traditional Pizza at a local outdoor restaurant. The next day they put us on a train back to Rome. People often ask us what’s our favorite part of traveling. We always say the people we meet. Thank you Lina and Enzo for making us feel at home and maybe we can host you if you come visit us where ever we might be. Now back in our “new home” in Rome we are planning for our next week. We have another old travel buddy coming to see us, Eilidh (Alee). We met back in a hostel in Colombia. She also stopped by to visit us in Panama a year later. So we are planning to save some stuff to see together here in Rome. Then when she leaves another travel friend, Colin is coming to visit us. We met Colin back in El Salvador. He, like us, had sailed down from the states. We met him again down in Panama a year later. It is really cool to meet back up with our fellow travelers and catch up. Most of them have done more travel then we have and tell us of lots of places we should go visit. Stay tuned for more Chrysalis Adventures and be sure to check out the photos in the gallery.