Albergo Diana Lucca

... on the "uphill" side as ballast.
This gives the tower a slight 'banana" shape.
An attempt was made in 1836 to dig out the foundation, yet lean worsened.
It was closed in 1990 to visitors as collapse was thought imminent. Tower then nearly 18'-6" off.
Stabilization work was begun in 2000 which brought the tower back toward plum by 11".
Re-opened to tourists in 2001 in groups of 30, attended by a guide only.

... spectacular. We visited the Ponte Vecchio (bridge) and of course saw David again. Found some new plazas and squares throughout the city and also rubbed the Boar snout to ensure we would return to Florence one day.
Weather is turning cold! But still having great fun.
Blessings
Rich and Kara

Pisa

woke up to pouring rain again so lucky we had a good look at the views the afternoon before… but made a tricky drive down in rain then onto Autostade.. Very fast but pouring rain to start with… finned up as we neared the coast… made it to Pisa… drove in traffic and down one way streets.. Mainly the right way we ...

... B we had booked… it was a restored castle on top of the hills in Tuscany… after much winding roads on what appeared to be a single road to nowhere we found it and it was worth the effort…..we sat on to of the hill looking at olive groves and the hills beyond.. Magnificent…. Dinner was a Florentine steak.. Yes just one steak between 4 of us.. The biggest T-bone in the world… amazingly tender .. View from top of mountain great….

Cinque Terre is a place I have heard a lot about, but wasn't planning to see on this trip. There aren’t a lot of places to stay and I hadn’t done my research on which of the five towns would be the best to stay in. But thanks to some advice and a gentle nudge from some friends in Florence, I decided to spend two nights there and do "the hike". It was a good decision.

I stayed in a town called ...

After travelling for the last 6 or more months without a real break we thought we might just settle down for the winter, instead of heading back to London and back to work. We are plonking ourselves with some of Dino's relatives in Tuscany.
Shona can't speak a word of Italian, but is planning to learn and not one of Dino's relatives speaks English. It should be an interesting few months.
We ...

... guess. lol. We went to an Irish bar and they were celebrating the 250th anniversary of Guinness. We sat down next to an older couple from England who had also been to St. James' Gate in Dublin so we talked about that common interest for a bit. The Guinness Girls gave us free mini pints of Guinness and we got to keep the glass. I don't know how my 2 glasses are going to make it back in tact to the states but I am determined to find a way!

So before I could make any more ...

... and bag with laptop and other things pinched - in broad daylight too . . Soured our view of Lucca somewhat as you could imagine. Feverish series of phonecalls to Peugeot Open Europe (lease company), who weren't particularly helpful. I went 'round to the local police station, and spent a while trying to explain what had happened - plenty of miming as they didn't speak very much English at all (and my Italian consisted of ...

... bake for th next morning around midnight and one place opens at midnight and you can go there and get fresh warm pastries. It's kind of a secret but some of the kids in my program have been and loved it! I get to go this weekend! The talent show consisted of two "groups" competing against each other. The first one was a bunch of guys from my pensione doing the fizzle dance...it was hilarious! Then the pensione Gallo D'Oro did a dance to the Scissor Sisters. They did a ...

... to prove it... The second day was a trip to Lucca. Lucca is the main city around where we live. About 75,000 people live there and we are about a 15 minute drive away in a small town called Marlia. Lucca is a walled in city, where one can walk the entire wall that surrounds the city. No traffic is allowed in except for those who live inside the walls and buses. We walked around the walls of the city, saw a few important cathedral's ...