Italy Day 12 - Pisa and Florence

Monday April 14th - First full day in Florence!

We had a very nice breakfast here!  Then it was time to huff it!
We headed to the Duomo and to the stairs!  We went up, and up and up! The dome within the dome architecture was really amazing and the paintings on the ceiling were disturbing, fascinating and amazing as well!  The view was amazing! We could see all the locations we had seen the evening before, the hillsides, and the places we wanted to go see! Going back down made you a little dizzy, but it was really amazing! We ran across a group of American kids - ugh! Loud, annoying, typical! By the time we got back down my legs were all gooey! We walked around a saw the Capinilla and the Basilica Doors. We might try the Capanilla later tomorrow - but hubby didn’t want to do another set of 400 stairs right after the dome! Woose!  ;)

We headed to Pisa for the afternoon! On the train we enjoyed a British family of 5 where mom attempted to keep control and Dad took a nap. Ugh!! They were the only ones making sound on the train. Ugh!! And me without my ipod. We were very happy to reach Pisa! We huffed it down to the Duomo area, we got tickets to climb the tower at 3:20, so we had time to burn. We walked around, took pictures of all the pieces, did the holding up the tower pictures, and had cappuccino at a sidewalk cafe!

When it was our turn for the stair climb, the weather had turned, the clouds had come in and the wind was whipping around! Our luck of poor family behavior continued - an Irish father with 3 kids were pushing us up the entire tower. Screaming within a marble tower is less than appealing. Gotta love great parental control. Besides the terrible children, the trip up was crazy! You could feel the lean and see the wearing in the steps at different angles. It was crazy! We made it to the top and then to the tippy top - the belfry. I was feeling less than secure at the top!  :( My grip on the handrail was pretty white knuckled! The view was indeed amazing, and you almost felt as if the clouds were on your shoulders!  Hubby made sure i made it down the stairs - there was no hand rails at that point!

We took a different route back to the train station, and ran into a rain storm!
Seems to be our weather this trip!

We had sandwiches for dinner - i went with a meat and mushroom type thingy, hubby did sausage pizza! We then popped into the hotel bar for some wine and a couple appetizers! I love me the green olives! There were also some marinated caper pods - mmmm - looked like okra inside! We had a relaxing evening in front of some english TV, listening to the rain!

Tomorrow is Pitti Palace, Boboli Gardens and Fake David #2!!