Our European Adventure

We booked this tour with our hotel after deciding that dragging saphira around to look at any more renaissance art would be a nightmare. Pisa, obviously, to see the leaning tower and Lucca because it sounded lovely and we were keen to do something outdoors. When we booked the “bus tour” we imagined an overly perky tour guide and a huge coach full of other loud, embarrassing tourists. We imagined we would fade into the background at the back of the bus somewhere and trail behind the tour group at our destinations.

Well. After asking a few unhelpful Italians where to find the bus stop (“Just wait out there, it is a white bus.” - totally wrong information!) a tour guide looking for tourists for some other destination pointed us to our guides and bus across the road. Claudio and Daniella were not quite what we were expecting. Both in their fifties, Claudio was cheerfully unkempt-looking while Daniella was bright and colourful with big hair. Claudio’s smile and yellow fingers indicated years of smoking (cigars, probably) and Daniella’s violet socks with bright green frogs dancing on them stood out immediately. Eek! We looked around for the rest of the passengers. “Are there any other people here yet?” We knew we were already late because of all the bad directions we had received. Daniella looked around. “No, I don’t think so…” and then Claudio pointed out the “bus”. We’d call it a van.

Now that we realised we had our own private tour guide and chauffeur we thought we were pretty special! We all sat beside each other in the van while Daniella peered at us from behind her seat and chattered away endlessly about the countryside, different places we might choose to visit in Lucca and Pisa, and details about Tuscany’s history. Interesting, but hard to follow, so Mel and I took turns making encouraging grunts and the occasional comment. Every so often I’d notice an exaggerated, “Oh, wow!” from Mel, punctuating a fairly boring statement about the “mounts” on our left. Daniella was awesome at speaking English (despite a heavy accent) but the one thing she got wrong was the word “mountains”. I would silently giggle… then not very long after do one of my own embarrassing gasps of fake excitement to disguise the fact that I’d drifted off.

We arrived in Lucca and Daniella suggested a few things we might want to do and see then left us to potter around on our own. We visited the cathedral where the sculpture of Jesus, apparently carved by Nicodemus while angels guided his hands to sculpt his true face was kept. We got lost in the narrow streets and almost got run over by nannas on rusty bicycles. We climbed the tower with the trees on top and enjoyed a stunning view of the town and surrounding mountains. Lastly we strolled along Lucca’s town wall (yes, the same one that they built to protect themselves against enemies – ie: Pisa – hundreds of years ago.)

We then met up with Daniella and Claudio and headed to Pisa. On the way, Daniella pointed out the “mounts” where Michelangelo got his marble to sculpt David (all one piece of marble!) and most likely a hundred other sculptures. We saw lots of olive trees and Cyprus trees and lovely ripe clementines dangling from branches.

First thing we did in Pisa was eat. We were starving after our big walk and climb up the tower. We ate (surprise!) pizza and pasta at a Trattoria in the main street. I totally wanted to go for a ride on a triple bike but instead we decided to climb up the leaning tower. Yikes! After yet another lovely Italian woman yelling at us to get our tickets before we could even approach the tower, we discovered that they don’t let children under 8 years even go in it. So we cruised the ugly markets and played on the grass in the square until it was time to meet Daniella again for a guided walking tour.

We all now know far more about the leaning tower than we ever really cared to. Did you know that it leans about 4 metres? That as soon as the lean is as long as the radius it will fall? That it started off only 3 stories high before it began to lean and was abandoned? That another architect designed the rest of the tower with shorter and heavier columns to try to even it out? That even later, concrete was injected into the ground under the sinking side and soil was dug away from under the other side? Oh wow, I could go on for hours. Daniella sure did.

We went into the cathedral and checked out the beautiful Baptistry. The cathedral holds the giant chandelier that Galileo apparently used to develop his theory of pendulum swing. It was a nice place to hang out and of course there was heaps Daniella could tell us about all the art, architecture and history of each building.

At the end of the day, Daniella decided to catch the train home so we were left alone with Claudio, who was embarrassed about his bad English and therefore refused to talk too much. (His English was excellent). Saphira and Mel fell asleep during the drive while I gazed at the beautiful scenery, reflecting on yet another awesome day in Tuscany.