The Italy Birthday Trip: Pisa

Thus starts a series of blogs accounting my recent 'dream trip' to northern Italy ... ten days planned (and planned, and planned) to be shared between the coast and wine country to see first hand all that I have discussed for so long regarding the pleasures this region has to offer.  There will be four to this series - if I tried to cover the trip all in one blog it would be impossible - 600+ photos!!

The trip started off on a concerning note when a series of public transportation set backs in London caused us to miss our flight to Genova by minutes ... (argh!!!) Jonas said he could see me turning red from the neck up.  I was simply trying to fight back the tears and think rationally.

Genova is a small city, and it is not like you just jump on the next flight in an hour or two ... the next flight was tomorrow, and it was full.  Fortunately our scurry with a helpful BA counter agent with an atlas landed us with a flight to the not so far away Pisa, leaving in an hour ... Yes!  Oh, and that will cost you just ...  Ugh.  Oh well, you take what you get.  Nothing was going to ruin this trip!

So, though an hour behind, things from here went perfectly and I got to see the Tower of Pisa!!  Unexpected bonus - another major global monument checked off the list!  Of course, the cheesy tourist thing to do at the tower is attempt to get some sort of clever shot of you supporting the tower ... ours were just not so successful, but you get the point!

The tower itself was stunning, almost seemed to be carved of ivory, and definitely leaning at an eerie angle.

Now ... I just need to figure out how to get from Pisa to our original destination, Santa Margherita.  Thank goodness I knew the Tren Italia site fairly well from doing previous research, and it was just an hour and a half train ride.  After just a short pit stop we're off ...