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Friday, May 18, 2012

Kamikaze tourism

5/17/12:

Today's timeline:
0830: Wake up (Carolyn).
0855: Carolyn tries to wake Michael up.
0900: Carolyn tries again to get Michael up.
0901: Michael wonders to himself why he drank 1/2 a liter of wine after having 5 pre-dinner beers
0903: Carolyn threatens Michael with bodily harm and to take away all his ketchup privileges if he doesn't get up.
(30 seconds later): Michael is brushing his teeth.
1000: Our host picks us up from our fabulous apartment to take us to the train station.
1020: Train departs La Spezia for Pisa.
1200: Arrive Pisa.
1206: Drop bags off at storage.
1210: Begin 'Pisa walking tour'.
1314: See the Leaning Tower of Pisa,
1530: Return to train station.
1554: Depart Pisa for Florence.
1700: Arrive Florence.
1711: Get map from Tourist Info point.
1725: Check in to our hotel (hotel Romagna).
1802: Go to dinner.
1934: Leave dinner.
2000: See Duomo for first time.
2034: Have 2nd-Gelato.
2100: Return to hotel.
2101: Exhausted.

Eventful day fo sho! Our side trip to Pisa was a last minute idea and really worked out great! We walked around and saw some great sights and of course saw the leaning tower. What a place. The tower is in an area called the 'Field of Miracles' and is surrounded by a fabulous duomo, baptistery, museum, cemetery, etc etc etc. The tower itself is pretty impressive but we didn't think it was worth the €15 fee / person to climb to the top. So we took about 200 pictures and lounged on the wonderful grass field (field of miracles). Looked at some souvenirs and eventually made our way into the Duomo. It was amazing. Not St Peters basilica amazing but grand none the less. Saw the body of St Raminieri who has a crazy cool silver face mask. A bone from another random saint and the tomb of Henry VII, holy roman emperor and the lamp that inspired Galileo! Not a bad day at all.

By the time we got to Florence we were wiped out. We grabbed a bite to eat and went to see the Duomo since its late and that means the tourist hoards are all gone.

Tomorrow we'll blitz through the big sights and figure out our next couple days.

Pics:
1) Carolyn framing the tower
2) Me holding the tower up.
3) Carolyn and the tower.
4) Florence - Duomo.
5) Us and the Pisa-Duomo.
6) Me and the skeleton key!
7) Geovanni's pulpit - Pisa-duomo.
8) St Ranieri.

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