Day 10 - Pisa

 Thursday was another long bus ride, as we moved from Switzerland to Italy.  

We move two seats on the bus each day, in a clockwise direction, we started in the front of the bus, we finally made it to the back of the bus.  The back of the bus is a bit more bumpy and loud, just like the school bus when we were kids. 

Pisa is part of Tuscany, central Italy, and famous for their leaning bell tower. 

We were dropped off by Marco and took a street train a short distance to meet our guide, Roberto. Roberto was a very entertaining guide, he joked with our group and every tourist that got close to him was spoken to in their native language; he speaks 9 languages.  

The tower was shut down in 1990 because it was considered unsafe and might topple.  For over 10 years stabilization work was carried out.  Today, according to Roberto, the lean of the tower has been stabilized and it is considered stable for at least the next 200 years. 

Pisa's cathedral and baptistery are also in the same area for viewing.  Roberto took us into the Chapel where he explained the history of Pisa. As we have seen before in Italy, when you ask an Italian where they are from, they typically will reply what town. The towns raided each other for centuries. Roberto doesn't care for Florence, at least that was part of his entertainment program. 

The cathedral is under restoration. 

The inside of the cathedral. 

We did not go into the Baptistery, but Roberto explained that the only place in Italy where full immersion baptisms are done is here. 

Everyone tries to stand the tower back up, even Jean.

Jean and Ed climbed the tower, all 294 steps. June and I tried to see them on the top but somehow missed them. 

The tower leans more or less depending upon where you are standing. 

Someone in our tour group asked if the tower will ever be stood up straight? Roberto said no way because if they did they would lose 19 million tourists every year!  True.

We enjoyed our time in Pisa and set off for Florence where our hotel was for the night. 

In Florence we were treated to a nice dinner and later had drinks at the hotel bar.  We got to chat with Matt a bit more, it seems all countries have the similar issues to what we experience in the USA. I guess humans will be humans. It was a nice evening. 

Friday we will explore Florence and then move on to Rome.