We spent our first full day in Tuscany settling in to our house and working with our host on a couple of issues like no gas for the stove, no hot water – you know, small things.
Everything got sorted out by mid-day so we headed out to one of the kids’ bucket list items in a nearby city – Pisa!
We found a parking place and a restaurant for lunch. We picked Italian food today by the way. We were a little concerned our trip was for naught when we spied some graffiti across the street.
But it turns out the painter was wrong and the world famous Tower was leaning just as we’d hoped.
Always up for a climb, Suaram and CreeperPuppy wanted to go to the top. It was Dad’s turn so he made the corkscrew journey to check out the view.
It was toward the end of the day so not too hot or crowded which was nice. Almost everyone was trying to push the tower back to straight so the kids thought they’d help too.
We didn’t stay too long in Pisa, like many tourists we marveled at how the tower stays up, snapped our photos and moved on. In our case it was to the city of Lucca. This town of 90,000 is known as an ‘Arts Town’ because of its Renaissance era city walls and intact historic center.
The walls are about 30 feet high and 75 feet across for the entire 4.8km ring around the old city. Originally built for defensive purposes, they later became a pedestrian promenade. Today they are a popular jogging and biking trail for locals and tourists alike. We contemplated renting bikes but in the end settled for walking a bit around the wall and then wandering the streets of the city.
The evening weather was very pleasant and perfect for enjoying some treats. The kids are in process of perfecting their gelato goatees so we’ll try to grab a photo once their technique is more practiced. A sweet end to a lovely day in Italy.
5 Adventures Together 