Dia Diciassette … From Art Deco to Vampires, with a Leaning Tower in bWeetween

We almost skipped Pisa, but I am so glad we didn't.
The tower and its environs are lovely. It really does seem like a miracle that it is still standing, it is so off kilter. 

This morning, we bail on Viareggio like the third wheel on a date. It wasn’t that we weren’t having fun it just wasn’t really our thing. Since we have no agenda for a few days, we decide to head south and see Pisa and figure it out from there.

It was actually quite easy to navigate and keep us off the toll roads, from Viareggio to Pisa. There is nothing wrong with the Autostrade it’s just that they are immune of the personality that we find on the smaller, local roads.

As we approach Pisa from the suburbs, we are soon seeing a dome and believe the leaning tower is related to it and wham, there it is. Holy icon, right there: Pull over and park where you can! We wander up to the site and take all the pictures we can! We think about climbing it and check out the process. We have to wait for a group of 40 in half an hour and then check everything but the camera to climb with a group. Not our style. We are both thinking that the tower is very beautiful and leaning an amazing amount that it is hard to show in the photos. What we thought would be just a tourist stop is a great experience…I guess that’s why it has become such an icon. So glad we made this journey.

Leaving Pisa we are amazed to notice a waving flag for a self-serve Laundromat that is just what we want. As I start the laundry, Dennis crosses the street to find a mega-store that sells the exact kind of external hard drive that we need to get our computer memory shifted. Perfect. Yea! Yippee!

With clean clothes and a new lease on memory we leave Pisa behind. As we approach the Autostrade that will take us south toward the entrance to central Tuscany we are met with a gate where a guy is repairing the ticket dispenser. We ask him for a ticket and are met with a barrage of Italian there is no possibility we will understand in this decade. He signals we should just go ahead in the hand signal way of Italians and we sign the signs for tickets and he says no, go ahead and we do…and you know where this is going…when we get to the exit to the toll road the machine yells at us in a language we can’t understand, despite pushing the United Kingdom flag, and basically keeps us locked behind a barricade (fortunately there is no on else behind us honking!) Ultimately it spits out a long ticket printed in many languages that says since we can’t provide a ticket we have to pay 65.5 Euros! Holy crap. Really? If we could go back and park at the Pisa ticket pick up point and grab the guy who told us to go ahead, we would. Sh*t! But what can you do.

We keep on. Once we are off the Autostrade, it takes a while but we can put the frustration somewhat behind us, in part because it is very beautiful here. Lush, green crops and parches of forests and flowers and olive and grape and apple orchards. It is magnificent with hills and mountains in the distance. There are lots of farmhouses that look like they were lifted from Under the Tuscan Sun…both before and after the renovation versions and towns and communities scattered up the hills.

We are headed for Volterra, not because it played a role in the Twilight saga, but because it is a hilltop, walled city – that happened to have played a role in the Twilight saga ;-). As we get closer and begin the switchbacks up to the town, it is breathtaking. When we finally crown the hill the views are stunning. It is like being in a plane, I am sure we can see 50 miles!

We find a parking spot and head in behinds the walls of the city and are immediately charmed, but we force ourselves to be practical and go to find a hotel before we explore too much because it is already 6:30 in the evening.

All checked in to Hotel Sole, we walk back up into town. Well, hike would be the word. People in this town must have “glutes” of steel because many streets and alleys are running up around 30 degrees of incline. We enter through the Etruscan gate. The statues at the top of the gate have had their features all but washed away over the pat 600+ years. It is fabulous and crumbly old and at the same time alive with its current population. We have nothing like it in Canada, even in our oldest areas.

We find a small restaurant and for the first time in many meals enjoy flavourful pasta. Mine is asparagus and gran podano cheese that is delicious. Dennis’ is a pasta in a form of pork meat sauce that he really enjoys. We head back to Hotel Sole happy and full. Tomorrow we explore Volterra!