Pisa

Our trip centered around a flight to Pisa.  To get to Pisa,we tried something new and left from RDU to London Heathrow instead of our usual Charlotte departure.  I was worried this change of airports would be stressful but shockingly Heathrow made it easy & the club was right there once we entered our terminal giving us an easy and happy breakfast for the first time ever on one of these trips.  So, good flights and airports all around.  We landed at a quaint Pisa airport.

The “leaning” Tower of Pisa was on my original Europe bucket list from back in 2008.  It seemed fate to book this cheap fare directly to this Pisa then.  Once we arrived, we had to exit the airport and walk a fair bit to get our car rental, look out for that, it’s going to be a theme. We hauled our packs around the airport over to a another area.  Hertz had upgraded us so luckily we had a navigation system in the car!  That’s a bit of a miracle in Italy.

We had prepared to get a SIM card for an old iPhone at a local carriers store in order to use Apple Maps so we went to find this SIM card.  We drove into town and started walking around the main streets looking for the store tkhat’s supposed to be nearly everywhere and easy to find. This store turned out to be the wrong type, and we still don’t know what that means.   The town was quiescently Italian and it was the exact time of the Saturday stroll.  Great.

Per instruction, we drove to the other side of town to get the SIM card but that store was closed.  At that point we gave up and went straight to the Field of Miracles. 

The Field of Miracles consists of a separate Baptistery, Church, old cemetery with cloister, old hospital (now museum) and the famous Tower.  The church was started in the 1100s when Pisa became wealthy.  Due to its age, the church looked different than most.  The city declined in wealth in under two hundred years so the church remained in this simple design as the city could not afford any “upgrades.”

The Tower itself was fascinating and it does really lean.  We were surprised it lived up to the stereotype.  We stayed through sunset to appreciate the field’s beauty.

We ended this long 40 hour stretch with visiting their version of a mall to once again try to find a SIM card.  Jordan was successful in finding the right card and I fought the crowds at the local COOP grocery store to get our required supplies for our road trip.  

Our first Italian dinner was across from the University.  The University is well known in the scientific community.  I joke it’s where pre-famous scientist get jobs and then go to a better University to become famous.  The best example is Galileo.

After an amazing dinner and wine, we crawled back into bed at our Marriott.  (We cheated.) Off to Motor Valley tomorrow to start our second Italian road trip!

Step Count: 25k

Bottles of Wine Count: 1.5