Port of Pisa

4 June - We arrived at Port of Pisa Marina after a trip that was timewise, 50/50, in terms of distance it was 30/70 under power. The marina is new and and very good. Flying Fyn arrived 1 hour after we did after some freshening up we went out for dinner at a Pizza restaurant on the beach, 5 mins walk from the the boats.  The food was really good and well priced.  On the Sunday, we went did a quick sortie to Pisa and Florence. Having no expectations, we were very impressed with Pisa it has a large part of it shut to cars and you can walk around a Medieval town, it is really  pretty, the destination for the day was to see the leaning tower.

Cobbled streets with shops - most of them open on Sunday

Looking S, at the Arno

The Arno, separates Pisa N-S

A new bridge, over the Arno, Colin looking East

On towards the Leaning tower..

Most of the town is like this, which makes it very pretty

 The large part of the town, within the old fortifications, are like the above photo. The photo's below are the central square, with a number of roads converging (the poto, below explains it better than I did).

Description of the Piazza dei Cavalieri

Enough pictures of the Piazza, on to the Duomo... The church below is on the way to the Duomo, it is quite old (cars are newer;-/).. 

This church was built circa 1000

Finally.. The tower..

The tower was built to be the bell tower for the cathedral, and it started leaning while being built and they continued (glad they did)

We didn't walk around the cathedral as we were in a rush to catch a train to Florence. As it turned out by the time we bought our tickets(which were 16 OORo) return, the train was literally leaving.. We milled around the Piazza for everyone to take their photos of them holding up the tower.

A close of of the bell tower

As we were planning to take the train to Florence, things were a bit rushed, but here is some more info on the Duomo.

This church, has a fresco on the outside (the fake big bricks), yet it's made of small bricks

We just managed to catch the train to Florence and then we decided to take a bus tour around the city. When we arrived at the station, the outside temperature was 37 C.

Fortress build by the Medici, to intimidate the locals and to protect his clan against the locals

One of the many towers where old city walls were

Florentine Mint - this is where the Florin was minted (many a year ago)

Another tower on the old city walls

The Arno a long time ago, was navigable all the way up to Florence, now not so much. On the dam wall you can see the locals with a picnic table. We went to the top of the hill (left of the tower, not visible from the photo).  

City Library

 The bus turned down the street and the library was on our left..

Back on the Arno, another view of the tower

 The bus then took us up the hill to an observatory, built in the 1800's to honour Gallileo and the view of the city was quite nice..

Florence skyline

The Ponte Vecchio spanning the Arno

 After lunch we took the bus down the hill, there were a number of properties with ties to famous people, they weren't to shabby..

This house was given to one of the Medici's consorts.

Ponte Vecchio

On the Ponte Vecchio

 The Ponte Vecchio, is lined with shops that sell gold goodies...

Another of the Florentine towers, converted to an apartment block

 We then took in a display of Gallileo's quotes works of art etc (it was just a number of pictures of his works with his quotes and works), in an old church. It was good to get out of the heat.  Some of his notable quotes.

Medici Palace

 There was a little gallery with sculptures next to the palace..

We then walked into the free part of the palace, it was quite impressive, certainly something to add to the to visit list..

 To see the remainder of the Palace, we had to pay, due to that and it was getting close to 18h00, we headed back to the train station..

The crew leaving the square

Old city gates

The Duomo

 The Duomo, was quite impressive, we only looked at the outside of the building and it was very pretty..

Back at Porto di Pisa

We got back to the boats as the sun was setting, all in all it was a thoroughly pleasant day, everyone enjoyed it, even though we only had a glimpse of what the two cities had to offer.

The following day, Colin and Sabrina headed out to do more site seeing - they went back to Florence and did part of the route we did, but at a more leisurely pace. I stayed on the boat and had to do some maintenance, the outboard engine transmission started leaking oil over the past number of days. Just as well I looked at it as the oil was white and not much of it...

Colin and Sabrina returned and Mike and Michelle, invited us for dinner. A nice and spicy stir fry.