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Pisa, Viareggio, Rapallo

Italy is so full of wonderful things and places that I've written about 20+ different places that we visited without getting to one of the most iconic structures in the entire country. I'm talking, of course, about the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

I don't actually remember our train route to Pisa from Milan, but I do know that I took a photo of the toilet on the train. It was the first time I'd ever seen a train-toilet that didn't even pretend that the waste was going anywhere other than the train track below.


                                  (That's the ground)

We hopped off the train at Pisa and started wandering, not really knowing where we were going. We sort of assumed that we'd get off the train and immediately see the Tower somewhere off in the distance and just walk that direction. We were wrong. Basically we left the train station and walked straight ahead in a 12:00 direction. The Tower was at about 10:00 and it was a solid mile away from the station.

Things turned out OK though because we walked around, looked at the surprisingly full river (the Arno - same one as Florence), took a wrong turn somewhere, and more or less followed the medieval wall around the old-city, figuring we'd run into the Tower at some point. Since it took longer than anticipated we had to stop for gelato.

All roads lead to gelato.

Bellies full and hearts happy, we realized that the gelato-shop was along the same street as the Tower, so we quickly found what we had been looking for.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is much cooler than I expected. The Tower itself is rather remarkable because - sure as shit - it's leaning waayyyy over. Furthermore, it's in this giant beautiful piazza with an enormous/beautiful church and a lovely baptistry. I didn't expect those things to be there because I didn't do any research whatsoever about going to Pisa other than how to get there.


                     (Baptistry + side of church)

We spent a while in this piazza because while the grassy area in the foreground of this photo was off-limits, there was another grassy area toward the back of this photo (past the church) that was totally fine to lay in. We were lucky to have a 70 degree, cloudless day, so we laid in the grass for hours.



It was really really pretty. We had a hotel in Rapallo for the night, which was still another hour or so away, so we had to tear ourselves out of this plaza before the day ended. We also planned to go to a beach-town called Viareggio, which was only a few miles from Pisa.

Tears in our eyes (sort of), we hopped the train and hit Viareggio. It was a typical little beach-city except there were mountains off in the distance and that is not something a midwestern-American is used to. It had huge sandy beaches, palm-tree lined shopping streets, and mountains in the distance. Somehow this place doesn't crack the top 50 of a typical "must do in Italy" list - that's how great traveling in Italy is.

We went to a supermarket to get some meat, cheese, and bread for dinner and headed straight down to the water. Watching the sunset was delightful until this woman's two dogs ran around us, spraying sand all over us for about 2-3 minutes. She scolded them once, then sat quietly as they continued to run around us, ruining our food. She didn't seem to consider going LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE MILES-LONG BEACH. It didn't turn out as great as it started.


               (Viareggio's main beach-entrance)

On to Rapallo. Rapallo didn't have a whole lot to offer other than the fact that it was a small town on a small inlet of the Mediterranean, nestled at the base of smallish mountains on the Italian riviera. Not much to offer, duh.

It was gorgeous. There are lots of docks in Rapallo but we were there early enough in the spring that it wasn't fully active for warm-weather. An old castle on the sea (Castello sul Mare) was completed in the 1500s and still stands guard over the town. A waterfront promenade is the highlight of the town, but views abound and small parks show up around each corner. It's a delight.



We biked over to Portofino, which is a famously beautiful little town about five miles away for more of the pastel-colored beauty of the Italian coast. The bike ride along the coast was fantastic and the payoff was just as good.



We wrapped up the weekend on Monday morning and headed back to Milan for whatever it was that we actually did in Milan but before that we stayed in a couple of really cute hotels. According to my email they were Hotel San Desiderio and Hotel Stella. If you find yourself in the area, I strongly suggest both...although I guess not at the same time because that would be weird.


More pics!




Pretty sure I'm doing this right


Turns out there's a 2nd tower. Who knew?


The beach at Rapallo

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