Happy Canada Day! Now this is my first time outside of the country for its birthday, I don’t know how patriotic I’ll be today but I’ll try my best. I’ve already been being an ambassador of Canada in some ways since my travels begun. We all have a super busy day ahead of us!
We packed up our things and headed off to the train station. Even leaving somewhat early in the morning walking there with our backpacks I could still feel the heat. Then again then extra pounds on my may have also been a factor in my excessive sweating. Oh well, your suppose to sweat once a day anyways at least I got it done with earlier.
Anyways… We are off to Pisa! In just a few hours out train end just a few blocks away from the leaning tower. Yes indeed it is leaning, and not just a little but a substantial amount. Now with a couple hours we are planning to get through the tourist things and then off to our next destination! Of course Andrea and I had to be the ultimate tourists and make sure to get our photos by the tower. The only thing is that they had the whole grassy area around the tower barricaded, this didn’t hold us back though! What is interesting about the tower is that once they realized that is was leaning they realized it they tried to fix. One method they did was to dig around the base in order to try to stabilize it, but instead ground water seeped out and created a mote around the tower and actually increased the leaning aspect of it… Seems to me like the approach if it isn’t broken don’t fix it hasn’t been their model whatsoever. We then went inside a Basillica and at the beginning of an hour a guide goes into the centre and sings. Now this seems like a strange thing but the acoustics in there are ridiculously amazing! Her voice echoed through the two story building. Afterwards we went to the Camposanto Monumentale. In the middle opened up into a beautiful courtyard. Along the sides were the graves both on and along that walls. What I found strange is that pedestrian path actually forced you to walk on top of the graves.
When we finished up our tourist time in Pisa we boarded the train to Lucca. The Lucy’s actually made their way to this town by complete chance and unintentionally their last time in Europe and feel in love with it. This medieval town is still today enclosed by city walls. When we got off the train we actually had to walk through tunnels and got into and through the brickwork walls to get inside. It was so cool walking into Lucca. Inside the town we grabbed a cold drink to cool us down overheard audio guys setting up for a huge summer festival in the main square. There were big name artists like John Lennon going to this small Italian town. We then made our way to an old chariot ring which now today has become a square full of restaurants and shops. Afterwards we went to the Guingi Tower. It is super unique in the town and stands out as it has trees that are on the top of it. We climbed up to the stop to get the view. I think I will be an expert at climbing towers at this rate once.
Our final train today is to take us to Cinque Terre. Or at least that is what we thought… There were so many delays for our train to get to the terminal that we ended up a silly amount of time. And then it happened to us again when we had to transfer to another train. There was nothing to do but wait, and grab some McDonalds for dinner. I’ve learned through my travels so far that you can always count on a McDicks aka McDonalds to be at or near any train station in Europe. Once we finally got in the train we were rewarded with a stunning drive through vineyards carved up in the hills. We passed along lavender and sunflower fields. Now this it the Tuscany region that I have seen! The train then climbed up to the cliff tops where we were able to get sneak peaks of the ocean! Once we finally made it to one of the five towns in Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore, we were so excited to pass out in our beds from a long a tiring Canada day :)