We’ve been wanting to visit Pisa for a while, and the opportunity came up for us to take a long weekend up there. The 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy was on Thursday the 17th, so we decided to spend a 4 day weekend up at Camp Darby in Livorno, about 10 minutes from Pisa. Turns out, Cori had a field trip scheduled for the 18th, so Becca and Palmer ended up going up on Thursday, and Cori and I drove up on Friday after her field trip.
Cori’s teacher asked if I was available to chaperone on the field trip, so I ended up following the bus up to an archeological site about an hour and a half north (in the direction of Livorno, luckily enough!), and helping herd 24 second graders while they learned how the ancient Etruscans lived and worked. It was pretty interesting to see how they created the tools that they used. The kids learned how they created their arrowheads and other weapons from stone, how they learned to make fire, worked a bit with pottery, and helped grind some spelt into flour for baking. The archeologist demonstrated how they forged metal into a spear head that the teacher got to take back to the classroom.
Cori and I drove to Livorno after the field trip and met up with our advance team. They’d already eaten at the bowling alley a couple of times, but we ended up eating there on Friday night anyway… nothing else was open on the base, and after a long day, we just wanted to eat and sleep.
The base is very quiet… nothing opened before 8:30, and the majority of the places didn’t open until 10 or 10:30. I got up at 7:00, and couldn’t find a place to get a cup of coffee until the breakfast place opened at 8:30. Nuff said. Let us never speak of it again.
Pisa was cool. It was about 10 minutes away from the base… I’ve heard stories about the strict traffic restrictions in Pisa, and I wasn’t looking forward to driving there, but honestly, it wasn’t too bad. We were following directions we’d gotten at the base, and had no trouble at all finding parking. We walked over to the piazza where the cathedral and tower are located, and bought tickets to climb the tower; they allow a specific number of people (40, I think) up at a time, and stagger the groups by 20 minutes. We were able to get tickets for a tour about an hour and a half out, giving us plenty of time to take the requisite “I’m holding up/pushing down the tower” pictures. The climb was nowhere near as bad as I thought it’d be. There were over 300 stairs… I don’t know if it was the height of the steps, or the constant lean, or the continual right turn (most of the way), but climbing the stairs wasn’t nearly as tiring as I though it would be. There was an enforced break at the 2/3 point, to allow the earlier group to come down while we wandered around (and around) one of the exterior levels. We got all the way to the top, took pictures, came down. One cool thing that we noticed… the closer you get to the top of the tower, the more you notice deformities in the steps. They honestly look like butt prints, on the tread portion of the stairs (probably from water dripping/running down the stairs). This led to a family discussion about how they got down from the top of the tower in the old days. I’m pretty sure that I saw Galileo’s butt print about 7 stairs from the top.
We think the climb up Pisa was so much easier because we “trained” last weekend. Last weekend, we climbed down (and then back up) Cascata Della Marmore. Cool waterfalls… the highest man-made waterfall in the world, and one of the tallest in Europe. 541 feet. Next time, we’ll go when the shuttle service is running. Entrance to the waterfall area is at the top. You walk down stairs to the bottom for the best views of the waterfall, then climb/crawl back up the stairs. I need to do some research and figure out when the shuttle service is running… we can hike to the bottom, then ride a bus back up. The bus wasn’t running last weekend. Hence the easy climb of Pisa.
Dinner last night was in a local restaurant ; our pidgin Italian was sufficient to order pizza, pasta, wine, and water. Pretty good, but Becca doesn’t like the mushrooms that they use up north; they use some sort of funky seasoning or marinade on them.
Today was the drive back; 2 cars, boys in one car, girls in the other. Boys won. That’s all for now. Make sure to check out the pics!
