Day 15: 11 July 2010

Had a quick breakfast at the hotel, then took the bus to Florence this morning to attend Mass at Santa Croce.  Mass was in Italian, but at least this time we knew what the readings were about from Mass yesterday.  They also had a bulletin with Italian responses so we could at least pretend to say the prayers a bit.  Caught a glimpse of Michaelangelo’s and Galileo’s tombs on the way out.  Michaelangelo’s tomb is fairly simple considering his amazing contributions to art.

Couldn’t resist gelato at Caitlin’s recommended Perque No after Mass.  It didn’t disappoint.  Although I decided that although gelato mousse is tasty, it’s not refreshing in the heat.  The tiramisu gelato here was great, though!  We didn’t have high expectations of getting into the Uffizi Gallery today because we had read that tickets have to be reserved far in advance.  We decided to try anyway, and to our surprise we got tickets for 40 min. later. 

While we were waiting to get in, we returned to Ponte Vecchio for additional pictures, and to look once more for Caitlin’s lock.  Found the spot where she put it, but it looks like they recently cut them off.  Apparently there is a steep fine of 160 euros for putting a lock up!  We pictured Caitlin sneaking a lock on there at night or while pretending to take a picture!

At the Uffizi, we took Rick’s audioguide…a great choice since we probably wouldn’t have known much about what we were looking at.  The tour led us through the 2D and birth of 3D art of medieval/pre-Renaissance/realism times to the more realistic figures of Renaissance art.  Some of the most memorable paintings were Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” and La Primevera, as well as other works by Leonardo DaVinci, Raphael & Michaelangelo. 

En route to the bus stop back to the hotel, we took a detour to find Caitlin’s apartment.  It was very close to the Accademia and in walking distance to just about anything in the center of Florence. Found a great cheap place for sandwiches a the Supermarket deli counter across from the Accademia.  Fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and pesto = delicious!

Got a late start to Pisa after spending more time than planned in Florence.  The drive was no more than 1.5 hrs, with lots of opportunities to spot sunflower fields along the way.  Arrived in Pisa just after 7pm and we were sweating bullets trying to figure out how we would ever make it to see the Tower that we thought closed in an hour.  Good parking was hard to find here since the old own is primarily for pedestrians with limited traffic.  We found a spot across the Arno and walked 25min. to town, or practically ran since we were in such a rush!

When the Tower came into view, I was a little surprised.  It’s definitely leaning, but it’s not nearly as tall as I imagined it to be.  Once again, we lucked out with tickets.  The Tower was open late until 9 or 10 so we easily got tickets for 8PM.  We couldn’t have timed it any better…We were roasting walking up the well-traveled stairs to the top.  I didn’t feel like we were leaning until we reached the top where everything was crooked and the railings were low.  It was worth the few minutes of uneasiness, though, because we got a beautiful view of the sun starting to set over the Duomo and Baptistry on the Field of Miracles below.  We also had a great view of the Tuscan countryside in the surrounding area.  The only disappointment was that the security guards rushed us all down so the next group of visitors could come up.

Once we got back down, we decided to call our hotel to let them know we would be arriving later on.  Grazia, the owner, in her confusing English said she didn’t have a reservation for us, but that she had one room available.  Not exactly the news we wanted at 9PM when we still had a 1.5-2hrs drive ahead of us.  For once, we decided to eat before rushing off, and we actually lucked out…we had the second best pizza of our trip in Pisa!

Arrived in Levanto a little after 11PM as the Spain was winning the World Cup.  Levanto is a coastal just north of the Cinque Terre so we drove down some crazy winding roads in the dark before we found Agriturismo Erba Persa.  True to her word, Grazia had a room for us and acknowledged that she forgot to write down our reservation.  Without even checking our names, confirmation emails or passports, Grazia welcomed us to her farmhouse and brought us upstairs to a large room overlooking the front of the house.  She wished us a good night and said she would check us in tomorrow.  We didn’t really know what to make of the whole exchange, but we were grateful we at least had a place to stay, even if we had to share a bathroom with 3 other rooms and take showers before bed because it was so hot in the top floor of the non-air conditioned old house.