Grand San Marco Pisa

Check out some pics. I've taken over an hour to post 20 pictures that is how incompetant that I am online!

I'll do more when I can, or when I get home they'll be all gettin on facebook. =)

Missing everyone today. It's my ONE MONTH DATE!

ACK

Much love!
Benita

... 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.

... 8230; and couldn’t find a park… jagged a disabled spot and thought we could always rip mick’s leg off if we got questioned.. Made a dash about 500metres up the road to see the leaning tower… it really is leaning!!… then quickly back to ensure the car was not towed away… back on the road heading north to Porotvenere..

... Anyway after much driving we met a local who understood English… unfortunately he seemed only able to say he understood English .. And with us asking for the sea and him agreeing with everything.. It was more sea..si sea.. Si….very confusing…anyway put feet in a creek which seemed to be heading for the sea… and called it quits…..

The rain picked up again and it was a bit of a difficult drive for Geoff to make it to a town ...

... it could jump off my plate at any moment… I had a bit of trouble de-boning the thing, but an Australian girl with much more fish eating experience helped me out.

On my only full day, I did the five town hike with two people from my hostel. The weather was not entirely cooperative, cloudy with a bit of rain. But the scenery was still amazing, colourful towns built into the cliffside, separated by ...

... the hours and realize that stores
here open only in the afternoon - from 3 or 4 to 8 or 9. How odd! Of
course, they are overpriced as well, but most are unique (only Zara is
not), and some have awesome fashion.



We did not eat out in that main area. We did have a quick very cheap
lunch at a Chinese place near our hotel - gotta tell you that was
Italian Chinese which is nothing like NY Chinese, but is still good. On
the way ...

... scallops and freaked when I realised my plate had veal scalloppine - Ev would have loved it but I couldn't eat it. So we didn't eat much that evening and proceeded on to a Fairy bar with the barman and his son. I love the fact that Italian bars and cafes provide snacks for free with people buying drinks. So you will have chips, olives, little dip and bread slices, herb crispbread and more put out for free - FREE!!! This became my main dinner. We had earlier found some good ...

We left Nice and headed off to Italia on the Italian intercity (IC) fast train, Trenitalia - a bit of an older fleet than the French trains, almost as old as the Johnsonville line back home! Unlike the French train system they are not always on time - we experienced this for the first time waiting for our connection from Genoa to Pisa.

On the Genoa-Pisa train, we were seated in a compartment with a middle-aged Kiwi couple (and ...

... another train!! We arrived in Rome in early evening and found our hotel. We are getting pretty good at finding hotels and getting around in new cities! We were pretty tired after our long travel day, so we called it a night pretty early! I love and miss you all, xx Tanya

... place called Cascina and took a train to Pisa. One hour was just enough to get to the tower, have a look around and get back to the station. The tower looks great especially now that it is freshly renovated. It sits on a square where there are some other historical buildings, also well maintained.