Writing Sunday, June 29, 2008 while driving from Florence to Venice, Italy We arrived promptly in Pisa, a small city whose chief commodity is exploiting the famous leaning tower. Dan was quite surprised to see the striking, white marble tower flanked by additional church buildings with their own beauty. He was expecting to see the tower (black in his mind for some reason) in a city setting rather than surrounded by the welcoming bright green lawns. We took too many pictures and hope at least a few come out well. The tower is now open for the public to climb to the top, but we followed the recommendation of our guide and did not pay the 15 Euros to do it. Unknowingly at that time, we were saving our legs (and our Euros) for a climb the next day.

Never more have we felt like we were in Mexico as we did while walking to and from the monuments at Pisa. The streets were lined with vendors selling the same colorful trinkets booth after booth after booth. Of course we bought a little souvenir, but I think that somewhere in my garage I still have the Pisa statue Dad brought home for me on a trip many years ago. If the Leaning Tower of Pisa were to finally collapse, so would the economy of this town; although, surely they would find a way to preserve the pieces and the tourist industry by marketing it a different way.

In the early part of the evening we arrived at our hotel: a very nice Hilton with a wonderfully air conditioned lobby. We found, however, as we scratched the surface, the hotel wasn’t quite as nice as it seemed, but we are still very grateful for the comfortable accommodations we’ve had throughout the trip. Our dinner this night was at the hotel and since we were somewhat outside of town, called it a night at the end of the meal.

Continue to Florence, Italy