February 23, 2023 - Pisa

Another great day. This morning we left earlier than normal for the train station. It is a 16-minute walk. We took the 8:47 train to Pisa, we waited about 20 minutes so missed the earlier one by 10 minutes. It was a quick journey of a bit over 1 hour. When we arrived in Pisa, we opted to walk to the leaning tower rather than take the bus so that we could do the caches along the way. We did 2 series of 5 plus an extra one. They took us all along the river on one side and then on to the other side going in and out of the back streets. Everywhere we go there’s at least one cache that takes us to a Medici villa. There was a villa in Prato and one in Fiesole as well. Their wealth must have been phenomenal to have so many villas close by. There were more caches around the square of miracles to do as well.

We looked for a place to eat before getting too close but didn’t find anything until we reached the tourist area. We spent a couple of hours caching and taking pictures as well as visiting the cathedral in the square. It was free to enter but you had to get a ticket in another building first. The time stamped for our ticket was 45 minutes away, but it wasn’t busy, and the guard kindly allowed us to go in right away. Often one of the most ornate things in the church is the pulpit. When we saw the height of the stairs, we couldn’t help but speculate if any priests ever fell going up or down those stairs with the numerous robes that they wore.

We opted to take the bus back to the train station on the way back missing it by about 1 minute but there was another one 15 minutes later. When you don’t know the language sometimes it takes longer to figure out where to go. A nice lady turned on her translator apt and told us to take the red line. When we arrived at the train station we again missed our train by 2 minutes but again there was another one 20 minutes later. It’s great when you don’t have to worry about hurrying and just have to wait a few minutes more.

After all that walking we decided that we had earned our gelato. We stopped on the way to the apartment. Jacques had white chocolate mixed with chunks of pistachio and the other one was a custard with orange sauce and chocolate. Rollande had the custard one along with chocolate mousse.

We stopped at the apartment to drop off the camera and rest a bit before going to the grocery store for tomorrow morning’s bread.

Church on the very edge of the canal.

Medici Villa (on the left).

Narrow streets

House where Galileo Galilei is believed to have been born. 

Monument of Girabaldi.

Monument of Galileo Galilei.

Roomba lawn mower.