Pisa & Lucca

Wow. Today has been awesome. Long. But awesome. The Villa put together a trip for us to Pisa and Lucca. We left around nine o'clock this morning, jumping on the #10 bus into San Marco so that we could get to Santa Maria Novella for our train to Pisa. Surprisingly, 33 out of 40 people decided to venture out with the group. After an hour train ride, we arrived in Pisa where we would hop onto another bus to get to the only real reason you'd visit Pisa in the first place: the Leaning Tower.

The Square in Pisa. Beautiful, no?

Anyway! Pisa aside from the three buildings you see here (a baptistry, a cathedral, and a tower) there really wasn't much to keep my attention. I ate lunch on the stairs you may or may not see to your left from a bag lunch provided by the Villa. After getting my fill of the tower, I wandered around the square looking in various merchant's shops to see what they had for sale. I wasn't particularly impressed by the selection and passed on everything. Disappointing, right? After we left Pisa was when the real fun began. We jumped back onto the bus that had brought us to the Tower and headed straight back to the train station so that we could hit yet another train to Lucca, Italy.

You should be happy that I didn't post or take a picture of myself "holding up" the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Lucca was a great, great, town. The part we visited was inside a giant wall. Pietro was telling us that we could rent bikes and ride them around the wall and the city itself. I love riding, so I decided to walk the ten or so kilometers to rent a bicycle.

Hey look! I'm on a bike!

Biking was absolutely fantastic. The views were amazing and the activity was revitalizing and made me realize just how much I missed biking back home on a regular basis. Only downside ended up being that I couldn't take many pictures of the city... because I was riding a bike... Well.. I guess I got a few from my bike, but it wasn't my camera. Kay had asked me to get a picture of her riding. I'm experienced enough, so I figured it wouldn't be too hard. Of course, I hadn't anticipated or taken into account the fact that there were about a million pedestrians in our way. So after about fifteen minutes of dodging, weaving, and balancing, I finally got a good picture. Luckily I didn't crash, either.

After four hours in Lucca (and gelato half way through) we hopped on our train back to Florence. After an hour and a half we arrived and headed back to Settignano to get pizza. It was some of the best pizza I have ever had. My days just keep getting better, and the people keep becoming more awesome. Love it!

God bless!