Pisa and Florence, Italy

July 14, 2010

Our European Excursion took us to Tuscany today. We started the day pretty early and drove to Pisa first. We got lucky and were the very first tour bus to arrive so the area around the tower wasn’t crowed at all.

The busses aren’t allowed where the church and tower are, so we had to take a short hike through the town of Pisa. On our walk Meme and I started chatting. She told me about a picture she has of Papaw in his army uniform posing as if he were holding up the tower, so she wanted to take the same type of picture and put them side by side in a frame. We also think we drove past the Army base he was stationed at during World War II.

This is the whole reason for the trip. Papaw was stationed in Italy during the War and came back telling stories of Italy, so it has been Meme’s dream to see the places he talked about. And since I’m totally obsessed with Italy, we promised each other we would go. And you know we couldn’t leave Mom and Dad behind and since Brice was added to the family, we couldn’t very well leave him at home. So, there you have it, the whole reason for the trip. Totally worth it!!

After our silly pictures of holding up and pushing over the Tower of Pisa, we hopped back on the bus and drove the hour and a half to Florence. Our first stop was the Academy to see the real David sculpture by Michelangelo. No video or photos are to be taken of the art. So Brice and I couldn’t help but snicker at all of the people sneaking photos of the David. I happened to catch one guy in the act. When he looked up at me, I must have a smirk on my face because he quickly dropped his camera and turned around pretending to walk off.

From the Academy we jumped back on the bus and drove to a little restaurant for lunch. We had some great lasagna of some sort, but it was hard to enjoy because it was so stifling in there. We were glad to get outside where there were some awesome misters. Why we didn’t sit out there in the first place, I will never know.

After lunch we began our quick walking tour of the highlights of Florence. Our first stop on the walk was Santa Croche (Church of the Holy Cross). This is the church where Michelangelo, Galileo, and some other important people are buried. We then journeyed to the main square and the Palace of the Medici. This is where the original David once stood. There are a bunch of really famous and great sculptures in the square. Next we walked by the Uffizi (big museum in Florence) to the Arno River, where we walked down to the Pontie Vecchieo (Gold Bridge). After snapping some quick pictures, we moved on the see the huge Duomo. We then made a quick circle around the baptistery to see the Gates of Paradise and then made our way back to the bus where we drove the hour and a half back to Livorno and the boat. It was a long drive but the country through there is just amazing. There were huge sunflower fields all in full bloom. Beautiful!!! We also found the villa Mom and Dad are going to by when they retire. It’s up on a hill that overlooks Florence and the Arno. I told them that was fine, it just had to be large enough for me to stay there too! Tuscany is so beautiful!