Pisa and Lucca

After the driving stress of Sienna, I decided to hang up my car keys and we joined a tour group from our campsite on a day out to Pisa and Lucca! On the bus we were told by our guide (who, impressively, could speak all five languages of the members of our tour) that the first stop was Pisa. As with the last ten days, it was a beautiful day (about 35 degrees, almost too hot!), and after fighting our way through people trying to sell us fake Gucci bags we entered the amazing piazza containing the buildings everyone had come to see.

I’ve always wanted to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa and it was as impressive as I have always imagined it would be. Built on dodgy ground, it has sunk right into the earth, on one side about two meters and on the other about four – it is actually impressive that it is still standing at all, from looking at it you would think that it would come crashing down any minute!

Next we visited the huge church, with a casket that contained a full body this time – of John the Baptist we think.... Afterwards we visited the Baptistery. We were told that this building is supposed to have amazing acoustic properties and that if we were lucky we might see one of the curators give a demonstration. Well it was out lucky day because as we were walking around a girl got up in the middle of the floor and started singing. Now I don’t know anything about acoustics but it sounded spectacular!

Next it was off to the walled town of Lucca. The place is similar to Sienna but very laid back. We ambled along towards the main piazza, which is an oval in the middle of the town surrounded by houses, where all the main festivities take place. Next we found a tower which I climbed. After a hell of a lot of stairs I poked out the top of the tower to find a load of beautiful little trees and stunning views all over Lucca from about 100m up in the air.

Afterwards we took a walk along the town walls and had some Gelato di Lucca (ice-cream of Lucca), which really hit the spot after a hard days sight seeing!!!




Piazza del Duomo



The Baptistry



The Leaning Tower!



Held up with a bit of help from me



Then I got a bit tired



The huge church



Mosaics on the door of the church



Amazing carvings on the door of the church



The body of John the Baptist is the yellow illuminated body near the bottom of this picture