Village Torre Pendente Pisa

... a browse through their beer selection and as I was doing so the waitress extolled the virtues of the Aventinus Eisbock.
She said it was a 12% beer that still had a Belgian fruity quality but with the 12% kick.
Had to give it a go and after half a glass on top of the 9% tripel I just had before am really feeling that kick as I write this!!!
Lucky she gave me some bread and crisps to go with the beer...

... Leaning Tower began to lean after its architect had completed only three tiers of the building. Most believe that the tower began leaning because of "shifting soil" – and then it continued to incline about 1mm every year since it was built! In 1998, however, the City of Pisa (realizing, I think, that if the tower ever fell over, their tourism industry would be severely curtailed!) wrapped cables around the third story of the ...

partie tot ce matin pour faire les 4.5 heures de train entre milan et pise, nous avons traverser plusieurs petit tunel. le paysage de la toscanne est beaucoup moins plat que ce que nous avons vue du nord-est de l'italie.

une fois nos bagage depose a l'auberge, on est partie vers la fameuse tour de pise. effectivemnt, elle ...

... kitchen.I went down later that eveing to chat to the people staying there and marvel at the double bed inthe kitchen.

Really quiet in the off saeason with a lot of places noteven bothering to open or open reduced hours.

Was sitting outside the only bar in RioMaggore and Jess who I shared a dorm room with in Salzburg walked past. Turns out she's staying in the same dodgy room as me again!

Was lucky there was a bunch of good people ...

We are finally home and it is actually Nov. 20th. We finally got in last night around midnight and could not download anything for the last several days because WiFi is too advanced for the small town we were in. It was the most relaxing of all the ...

... out and said they were going to get a cab because they were too nervous to trust the bus. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow and hope it all works out. I know that I will always reach my destination even though it might not be when I planned.

Of course I can't miss the Leaning Tower so I am taking a bus at the crack of dawn into Pisa and hoping to find it before I need to head to the airport later on in the morning ...

... I love it! It is beautiful! We toured the vineyard, I got kissed by a cow and then we ate homemade pasta and breads and biscotti while drinking their delicious wines. I have never been a fan of Red wines since i get a headache when i drink them but i still drank some of them and focused on the whites. I drank ALOT of white wine, ok maybe a little tooooo much wine. but it was a lot of fun and very yummy!

The italian countryside is so beautiful and nothing like I have ever ...

... do. And me in my jacket and trillby looked so out of place. Aside from the Kiwis there was an African man who also spoke English. He was as confused as we were and kept asking us what to do. Eventually we bothered the nightwatchman enough to stop watching the football match and open up the door for us. He took us one by one to the reservation desk and then showed us a room. I made sure I was last. I wanted to make sure that I didn't hear any bloodcurling screams in a New Zealander accent ...

... just as silly working on the same pose. I was interested to learn that the tower isn't the only thing leaning in the square. Because of the boggy ground, everything leans a bit; the tower is accentuated because of it's height. People used to be able to climb the steps to the top of the tower before it was deemed unsafe. Since then, Italy had installed steel frames in the tower to keep it from leaning more/tipping. Now I believe that people can climb to the top again.

I was not unhappy to leave Florence the next day. I can't say I had fond memories of Florence. We stopped at Pisa first, and saw the leaning tower. It does actually lean, by quite a lot! We spent awhile here, and walked along the many street vendors in the streets nearby. I bought an Italian soccer shirt for my brother. I was running out of places for souvenirs, and still had many more to go. On the way out of Pisa, we had a brief glimpse of the Mediterranean, blue in ...