When We Went to Europe: Day Three - Florence/ Pisa, Italy

We woke up to bright sunshine on the 3rd of November in Florence. The Florence leg of the journey was special for two reasons. I had wanted to see Florence for its buildings, and just that. There was little else there for those who don't drink, since winery is their forte in the Tuscan mountains. We were also to spend only half our third day in Florence, and were due to catch a train at 15 30 GMT to Pisa, where I was going to witness my first world wonder. Surprising - considering I had not seen even the Taj Mahal yet, which was closer home. Ten years back if you had told me my first world wonder would be the Leaning Tower of Pisa, I would have laughed in your face. It was with great difficulty that I had structured the trip so we could see both Florence and Pisa the same day. It was also particularly difficult considering I did not find accomodation in Pisa till the last week before we flew into Italy. By some chance, I got an absolutely beautiful AirBnb in Livorno, a port side town near Pisa.

The famous Duomo of Florence.

We spent the morning in Florence walking down its beautiful streets. Florence is the home for art lovers in Italy. It is littered with Michelangelo masterpieces, Leonardo da Vinci museums, and what not. But the art connoisseurs we were not, we chose to skip all of that and just walk through the town. Our first stop was at the famous Duomo, or Cathedral at Florence. The building was rich in architecture and housed the Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore. I was astonished at how grand it was built, and how brilliantly the Italian government had managed to maintain it. The streets were crowded, and this was news to us since we were expecting almost empty streets in the winter of 2018. November was not, by any stretch of imagination, a peak time for tourists in Italy.

Me, trying to make some sense of the map of Florence I got from the hotel. 

The crowd got worse as we passed the Duomo and tried to get tickets to see the David sculpture. We were accosted by Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan tourist guides chirping about how they can get us in through pre-booked tickets. I noticed the phrase all of them seemed to use was 'Skip the line'. I had been forewarned of the same, but with the increasing temperatures and worsening crowds, we decided to give David a miss. Michelangelo could wait till our next trip. Post the David debacle, we walked towards the Ponte Vechio, the only bridge that had not been destroyed during the World War II bombings of Italy. Honestly, the bridge was another disappointment with the extreme crowds, and photo ops that the view gave. People were placing love locks on the bridge, smooching for photos, and it got a little too suffocating as we made it onto the bridge. Ponte Vechio, clearly, was no match to the beautiful bridges of Venice.

Ponte Vechio, and the famous love locks. The bridge was no match to the beauties I saw in Venice.

We were already hungry by then and decided to get another Margherita Pizza for lunch. This would be our fourth pizza in three days, and we were running out of options. Tempers were also flaring as the heat got the better of us. At the max, it was an uncomfortable 27 deg C for our inappropriately dressed (we were decked in everything from a scarf to three layers of clothing) Madras people. We made our way to the hotel room, checked out, and headed towards the station. My sister had skipped the pizza (we never thought a day would come!) and chose to get some Chinese rice taken away for her lunch. The Santa Maria Novella was only a quick walk away, and we were relieved to get on the train as it chugged into the station from Milan.



The train we got into was the government operated Tren Italia. These were as clean, if not more, as the Italo that we had taken into Florence from Venice. We had to validate out tickets on the station, very similar to how we did on the buses in Venice. My sister took a quick nap, had her lunch, and before we knew it, Pisa Centrale, Pisa's main station, was outside. With bags and baggages, we took a quick local bus with other equally exhausted-but-not-showing tourists, all excited to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

The proper touristy pictures in my first World Wonder of this trip.

When we arrived near the Leaning Tower, it was close to 16 30 GMT, and the sun was setting. From the bus stand near the Tower, we had to make our way into the entrance (entrance was free!) and into the vast compound that housed the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a Cathedral and generously distributed green space for families to picnic around. There were hundreds of families taking typical touristy pictures. The weather was getting a little nippy, and I couldn't but smile seeing kids between ages 2 and 8 kicking a ball around with their mothers. As we finished our photo ops, and my sister made her way to take her customary brilliant pictures, I kicked a ball around in the grass and spoke to some of the kids. It was the weekend and they had no school. The Pisa complex also doubled up as a park for the lucky buggers.

Livorno was only fifteen minutes away from Pisa by train. The bus tickets in Pisa were valid for two hours, which meant you could take unlimited journeys as long as you were not in a bus when the two hours elapsed. We had around 25 minutes for the two hours to lapse. We could either hope to catch a bus in the next five minutes, and reach Pisa Centrale in nine minutes, or just take another bunch of tickets. The conservative in me chose to do the latter.

We made our way to Livorno at 19 30 GMT as the skies opened up. The sticky beach air that Madras was so infamous for greeted us again. As humidity increased, we were greeted in the station by our AirBnB host, a nice local who owned a couple of homes in Livorno and made his daily bread renting them out. Our house and four different keys to get in. This was the first time we actually lived in a local's house. Though we had the house to ourselves, our host came along to show us the place, and thank god for that. The first key opened the apartment door, the second got us into the lift. The third got us into the floor's passage, and the fourth into the house. Italian security, apparently. Back home, I did not even lock the apartment most times we went out. We realized we did not exactly want or like everything that was European.

The flat was a pretty duplex with a living room, hall and kitchen in the ground floor. The living room had a badass 50 inch TV, collection of English and Italian move DVDs, a stereo system that could wake the sleepy town, and games for everyone to play. We were tired and had no time for all those. The first floor had a hall and bedroom. My sister loved the kitchen, which was equipped with everything from an oven to a dishwasher. I ran to the local grocery store and got her some pasta to make with whatever oil was available at home. The grocer barely understood what I wanted. I started with whatever French I knew, hoping the Italians liked their neighbours enough to know their language. This failed, and I switched to gestures. When I encountered failure again, I decided to just Google Translate. It worked mostly well, though I ended up buying salty brown bread thinking it was chocolate cake.

Livorno - arguably, the prettiest house we lived in Europe.

Dinner was only decent, as I was no pasta fan. Food, largely, can be very disappointing for vegetarians during travel. I didn't let that disappoint me. I had enough to fill my stomach so I could sleep. It had been a really tiring day. The travel was taking its toll - and it was just 3 days done out of 21.