This morning we awoke to grey skies over Livorno. I won’t bother with a picture from the balcony, because it’s pretty depressing; dingy concrete docks filled with ships of all sizes (including three or four other cruise ships) bordering a vast field of rusting shipping containers that, in the distance, dissolve into a dirty industrial zone. Livorno is, however, a short drive from Pisa, so after a quick haggle with the predatory taxi drivers at the foot of the gangway (the guidebook says to haggle with them immediately, but it’s useless; they have more than enough fares to fill their cars, so haggling will just get you left behind) we jumped into a taxi that was big enough for all of us. It’s about a 30 minute drive to Pisa, which itself looks more like New Jersey than old europe until you get into the oldest section of town, the old portion of the town walled for protection against marauders and the plague, which is where the tower and cathedral are.
And then you turn a corner, and there is the famous tower.
What surprised me most was the detail work, the intricate stone carvings all over the structure. I was amazed enough when looking at the tower and thinking that it was 400 years old, only to be shocked when I read that it was 700 years old.
It was unexpectedly chilly today, so you can see the girls are cold in these photos.
Quickly the cold turned to fussiness. We toured the cathedral but the younger girls and Marshall had some fussy fits, so we’re really only now able to gape at the beauty of this cathedral.
Of course, before we left we took a few obligatory “I am a tourist in Pisa” photos:
