Yatzecks Abroad: Italics

Yes we are in Italy, which is Italic in it's own way. But there's something in Italy which is REEAAAALLY italic. Yep that's right, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. hahahahahaha

We checked the train time tables last night, and figured the shortest ride we could take to Pisa would leave at 8:28. That meant that we would have to leave the apartment by 8 at the latest, more like 7:40 since the kids have short legs and accordingly have short paces. If we were going to leave at this time, we had to set the alarm for 6:30, which came altogether too early and was a terrible decision when it did go off. But now that the day is over, we all agree it was worth it in the end. And that's what truly matters.

We had brought up good walking directions to get to the "field of miracles" from the train station (about a mile walk total) which was a good thing because there was pretty much no signage marking the way. The kids were pretty grumpy since they had to wake up early and they were starving as usual, which made me grumpy and I didn't want to reward their bad behavior and bad attitudes by buying them food, and everyone was getting mean. So I bought them pizza and a sandwich, even though I didn't really want to, which they proceeded to devour (including my piece - the sandwich was supposed to be for lunch). We got some cash from the bancomat (ATM) when we found out the souvenir shop didn't accept cards, even though they advertised they did, and the kids bought some little things to bring home.

The tower really is leaning more than we would have thought, even though everyone has seen pictures of it since childhood. Apparently they did some bracing and counterweight work so it didn't lean itself all the way over, but we didn't climb up or anything so I'm not entirely sure. We had to go to the ticket office to pick up our free tickets to enter the church itself, and at the same time Melis also paid for admission to the baptistery (the cheapest paid ticket) so we didn't have to wait for a specific time to enter the cathedral. Unfortunately it must be repair/maintenance season after the peak visitor season, because this church was also covered with scaffolding (like all the others, oh well). The building itself was less ornate than I would have guessed, but they had paintings covering the walls instead of loads of statues which was interesting. The ceiling looked awesome - not like "radical" or "tubular" or "boss" or anything like that, but truly awe-some. Our phone pictures will never do any of these things justice, but to know that we are visiting these places in person really IS captured by the phrase "mine eyes have seen the glory of the Lord."

The baptistery was very plain inside, and our tour of this was over fairly quickly. Apparently, however, one could sing a holy chant or something and the reverberations and echoes would last long enough that the person would be able to maintain a hauntingly beautiful harmony with themselves. I think I also read that this is the largest baptistery or something, but don't quote me on this.

We realized that we were quickly running out of time if we were going to keep our schedule of the day, so we BOOKED it all the way back to the station. 5 1/2 Americans running through Pisa was something I would rather see than be a part of, but cest la vie. I used a ticket machine to get our passes to return to Florence while the kids got to the correct platform. I finished as fast as I could, validated our tickets, and ran to the platform; we jumped through the doors literally less than 1 minute before the train started pulling out of the station. We just made it! The kids were all starving again as usual, so we ate our sandwich and bottle of Fanta and some cherry candies Melis had picked up while I got the tickets.

Once we got back to Florence we headed back to the apartment for a little rest, and to refill our water bottles. About 2:30 we were recharged and ready to hit the town again, this time to Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral. We picked up our tickets from the ticket office (for free since we had the Firenze card) and Joey, Mary and I skipped the 2 hour line to climb to the top of the dome. We got some pictures of the city, but without the dome it just wasn't the same. Definitely worth the 463-step climb though!

We found this humorous piece of graffiti. We discussed how any graffiti, no matter how small, is wrong.

We met Katie, Lily and Melis at the exit and went inside the baptistery and then the cathedral. The cathedral was very stark, other than the painted dome of the chancel. We checked out the crypt area since we had access, and although it was interesting for an adult to see the oldest parts of the church and the different layers from over the years, it wasn't really kid-interesting, so we only spent a short time here. The kids were all starving again as usual, so we decided to head to the grocery store to pick up the same supper as last night, along with some other goodies, and head back for another inexpensive and delicious dinner. All made from scratch.

Internet was terrible in Florence, so we couldn't do much blogging. But we did head out one more time to do a bit of exploring and to see the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in Florence. We happened to wander past the Palazzo Vecchio, where we found the Fountain of Neptune, as well as the Loggia dei Lanzi, where the original Rape of the Sabine Women statue sits. It was a neat little find after seeing the plaster model made in preperation of this marble masterpiece.