Leaning Tower of Pisa

We left our hostel early to meet a couple guys from Alaska for breakfast. (Anna failed to mention in the last post that we met one of them, Dan, while we were trying our "Zuppa Pecse" for dinner. We hung out a bit afterwards - until we suddenly remembered that our hostel had a curfew. Thankfully, we weren't left sleeping in the streets. :P)

Manarola is a quiet little town, and nothing was really open there, so we walked to Riomaggiore...and there wasn't really anything open there either. So, we grabbed a couple pastries, some chocolate and a not-so-good lemon drink and wiped the rain off some outside chairs on a patio. We chatted away about travel experiences and such until Anna and I had to leave for our train to Pisa.

Dan, me, Anna and Dave

This is the day we left open on our itinerary...until yesterday, when we decided we would see the Leaning Tower and San Gimignano before arriving in Siena to perhaps get a room in the only hostel there. That sounds brave and adventurous, huh?! Well, we just couldn't choose between the three options!
Our train tickets for this leg were pretty complicated - lots of train changes, but we made it to Pisa in no time and trekked straight over to the Tower on foot. Pisa, itself, wasn't super impressive, but the tower obviously was - it was sooooo crowded!

Incredible architecture!






Apparently, this is "the" pic to take when you are at the leaning tower.


The buildings around the Tower.

We snapped some pictures, looked around a bit and headed back to the station to catch our next train to Poggibonsi. Poggibonsi...don't you just love that name?!

First things first though - gelato! Our goal, after all, was to have gelato everyday while in Italy. It's just not everyday that you can get real Italian gelato!




Back at the station. That was an exhausting walk...


...as you can see by this picture. :D ...What do you think she's thinking?

More about this day in the next post!

~Sarah