Old places

Next day was Pisa and Florence. Graham counted 49 buses lined up on the dock to transport cruise passengers from Livorno. We had been warned to be vigilant because of gypsies and pickpockets, so no pictures sorry, the iPhone stayed at home. We lined up to get our orange stickers with "Group #2" on them, and found the orange #2 bus, and laughed at ourselves as we followed a sign with an orange 2 down the road once we arrived in Pisa. At least it wasn't a Mary Poppins, as one of our guides called a guide from another company with an umbrella.

We set off quite early and were at Pisa before the crowds, so were able to get really close to the tower, although we did not have the time (or maybe even the energy) to climb it. The whole area - church, baptistry and tower was amazing, made of solid marble. We along with most others, took the obligatory photo of each of us trying to push the tower back up. Then it was on to Florence, after pushing through the hundreds of people by then heading for the leaning tower.



Kind of boring without any pictures, so here's last night's sunset.

Well, Gary, Florence certainly didn't disappoint us. The age of the buildings, the one remaining bridge that Hitler didn't bomb, the squares, the markets, the churches. The phrase"you had to be there" comes to mind. For Ann, old had meant maybe more than a hundred years, but to see buildings that have stood for centuries is very special. We really enjoyed just wandering the streets and felt perfectly safe among the many tourists and not too crowded streets.

But if we thought Florence was old, the next day was Pompeii!


;-) Ann-a-Gram