Venice was beautiful and Florence lively but I think Pisa turned out to be my favorite Italian city. I guess I should not be so surprised at how vastly different each city has been, that would be like expecting LA and San Francisco to be identical just because they are both in California. But Pisa was like a surreal mixture of the spectacular colors of Venice with the wonderful designer shopping of Florence pulled together with all the history of both. Life just seems to move at a much slower pace in Pisa. The streets are a little wider making it easier to walk through town without fear of being trampled by people or run over by a bus or stray taxi.

Although we booked our hotel at the last minute, due to the change in our itinerary, our room had the best view of the entire trip. From our window we could see the tower and the top of the cathedral. There was also a wonderful rooftop terrace with an amazing view, lounging areas and even potted plants to add to the ambiance. The tower was quite literally "a stone's throw away" from our hotel.

Since we were only there for one afternoon we figured the best way to see this city was to take a ride on a horse drawn carriage. It was an absolutely lovely experience as the driver took us on a tour of the old city pointing out highlights along the way. His English was not too good but we were able to get the gist of what he was saying. The carriage dropped us off right in front of the tower so we walked over to take some photos of course and mom had herself in stitches over trying to take a funny selfie with the tower. I swear we need to send that woman to a selfie seminar, although getting her to actually wear her glasses so she can see what she is doing would be a wonderful place to start. Then to top it off she does this thing where she volunteers to take pictures for complete strangers then she calls me over to take the photo, telling them that I am the "professional"... no pressure or anything. I think if I had a dollar for every photo I took for other people I could have paid our hotel bill. Hmmmm, I guess it's not a bad idea... I could always move to some far off city and live off charging people a dollar to take a picture of them standing in front of some famous tourist attraction, with their own camera of course, the travel possibilities would be endless...

don't panic it's just a thought.
Still a gypsy at heart
Liz

Peaceful Pisa