Pisa, Florence, Rome

Day Five:

So we woke up to a beautiful morning. The sky was completely clear and we could see the mountain tops. To see them towering over us was amazing. I was surprised by how low the snow was; I was expecting it to be much higher. Unfortunately we could only get a few pictures before we had to get on the bus. However, we went on a scenic route, and started in a valley and drove up the mountain. At the top, we were allowed off for some pictures. Then we made our way down on the other side. So cool. The rest of the day, we drove until we reached Pisa. Famous for the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We didn't have too much time there, enough to get some great pictures of us in front of the Tower and our first taste of Italian Gelato - soo good! Quick fact about the Tower. It is built on sandy soil, and they only made the foundation 3 meters deep. They started building the tower, but then they went off to war. When they came back after the war, they saw that the tower had shifted and was leaning, but thought they could correct it by building it heavier on the opposite side, and continued to build it. Obviously that didn't work. After leaving Pisa, we continued driving until we got to our lodgings in Florence.

Day Six:

In the morning we went into Florence and met our tour guide. Although she spoke English, with her accent it was really hard to hear/understand her, so for the most part I tuned her out. We walked through the city, saw a church, which had two different architecture as it took that long to build. We also saw the palace, which had the fake David in front of it. The king also had a secret walkway at the top of the palace, and other buildings so that he could get around the city without being on the street. We saw the gold and jewellery bridge, which has shops on either side of the bridge. If you didn't know any better you wouldn't know that it was a bridge. They used to have lots of bridges like that, but while Hitler was fleeing, he blew up all the bridges and surrounding area to slow down the Allies. For some reason, he left that one be. Our guide said that he might have had a soft spot for it as he had visited before and liked it - something like that. After our walking tour, we had some free time, so we walked around a bit, and had some lunch. Our first Italian pizza.

Once we got back to the bus, we continued on to Rome. We had a late afternoon walking tour. Our guide was great. We could understand him well and he made sure we heard him. Our tour of Rome was packed. We started at the Coliseum, Roman Forum, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps. We had a little history lesson and had some free time to see each of them. Before I knew it we had to go back for dinner.

It was a very good first two days in Italy.