The day after my birthday, we caught the train to Florence (without drama, thankfully). In order to save money we decided to catch the slow train instead of the Eurostar, so it took about 3 hours.
We didn't do much in Florence that night, but the next day the first thing on our agenda was a trip to Pisa. We got seriously lost trying to find the train station - an amazing feat seeing as all we had to do was walk in a straight line. As a result we wasted a lot of time and ended up just catching the bus.
The train took about an hour and was cheap as chips. I'd heard that Pisa was a dive and there was nothing to do but look at the Leaning Tower and come home, so I wasn't expecting much. In fact I was kind of expecting the slums of Italy.
I'm going to now say that that opinion was wrong. Of course Pisa is no Rome, or Florence, but the walk to the Tower was decent - strips of colourful shops and cafes that keep you interested as you stroll along. As Lonely Planet says "Pisa is an unassuming university town that while pleasant enough, won't claim your attention for long". But its all you need.
I was completely taken away when I first saw the Leaning Tower. It's lean is so much more impressive in real life, and the effect isn't completely captured in photos.
Of course we had to take the obligatory Leaning Tower photo. No matter how many other tourists around me were doing it, I still felt like a complete dork. It was really hard to pull off as well.
There were lots of postcards of the Leaning Tower falling over completely and crumbling to pieces. I mean I get it, but I still thought that was kind of...weird.
We spent about half an hour at the Tower, had lunch (ricotta and spinach cannelloni, delish) and then caught the train back to Florence. A very easy morning adventure indeed.
x
Karen
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