What a Magnificent Erection

From Our Holiday In Italy, Thursday, Pisa

We set out early on Thursday morning with the intention of arriving at Lucca at a decent time.  It was quite a run over to the Eastern side of Italy but worth the trip from what we had read.

It was another hot and steamy day and we were thanking our lucky stars that the Fiat Panda we had been allocated at the start of the holiday had been taken off the road with a flat tyre and we were now driving a fully air conned Fiat 500.

Don’t mention Michael Cane in the Italian Job or Alex will be rattling on about it for ever.  Lol

Anyone who’s visited Italy and driven will be able to concur that the road signage over there leaves something to be desired.  They have a tendancey to include every place on the map the road runs through in no particular order.

Which would explain why after hours of driving, or at least it seemed like it, we ended up going well off course and heading in totally the wrong direction.  After a while Alex realised that we didn’t appear to be heading the right way and after a friendly chat with a trucker at a garage we were soon on our way again.

But by then the correction to our route meant we were going to be too late to travel all the way to Lucca, it’s quite a big place and the time left would not permit us to have a good look round.  Instead we decided to head for Pisa which is relatively compact in terms of tourist attractions.

We parked up and had a pizza in Pisa before heading off to the Duomo Piaza to check out the leaning tower and other attractions.  Everything was compacted in to a small area surrounded by tourist “tatt” stores which made the revered monuments a little tacky.

Climbing the tower was out of the question as you had to book in advance by around 3 hours that day which we didn’t want to comit to but we were able to get in to see the other places of interest.  Ladies note that you have to cover your shoulders and wear garments below the knee to get in to the churches over there.

I dug out my trusty J-Cloth type gown from my previous trips to cover up my shoulders.  Rather amusingly nothing is mentioned about cleavage.  Lol

The inside of the Duomo is beautifully painted, guilded and marbled as you would come to expect of such a world famous monastical building and didn’t disappoint like the Cathedral Of Santa Maria Del Fiore in Florence who was all show and no knickers.

There was an amusing moment in the afternoon whilst we wandered between the tourist attractions, a Carabinieri started to blow his whistle and gesticulate wildly.  Alex and I tried to make out what was happening, had someone stolen something from one of the many stalls?

No, some young guys were walking around without their tops on.  A dramatic moment, just for a moment.

We walked around the Bapsitry and climbed the stairs to the upper balcony which gave you a great view of the floor below and the other buildings and didn’t require you to walk up 414 steps like the tower in Florence which was totally knackering in the heat.

I don’t know if I was becoming difficult to impress with things after the splendour of previous eclesiatical visits but the Duomo was the only building to inspire me that day.  On my next visit I will have to make sure I get a ticket to check out the tower in good time.

After looking around we didn’t really have much time to go in to the town but I wasn’t really bothered because it didn’t look that interesting and street hawkers were every where.

We set off back for home and once again got lost and had to ask directions.

Thursday was a bastard of a day…