March 27, 2011 - Sunday

We said goodbye go Florence today, catching a train first to Pisa.  At Pisa, a short bus ride took us to the Leaning Tower.  What a beautiful structure.  I had thought it would be in an open space at a large intersection.  I don't know why.  It was behind a wall, so I couldn't find it at first, and started following signs that were directing people toward parking for the tower, not the tower itself.  A descendent of Lewis or Clark, I am not.  A kindly sunglasses vendor led us to the proper place.  We, of course, climbed to the top.  There were only 294 steps, and the tilt gave an odd feeling when climbing.  I was surprised that the tilt began when only 3 tiers of the tower had been completed after 10 years of construction.  They did stop work then, but began again 79 years later, with corrections to straighten.  Still, the tilt continued to progress, though they believe they have stopped it now, thinking it will be stable for the next 300 years.



















After that excursion we hopped the bus and went back to the train station to continue to Vernazza, our village in Cinque Terre.  It was a little confusing finding the proper train, and one station attendant tried to send us to Rome on Track 3, when we thought we wanted Track 6.  She corrected herself and we boarded the train on Track 6.  I was relieved when I saw the station for the 1st village of the Cinque Terre (we are in the 4th), glad to know we had made the right choice.

View from our hotel window

Vernazza is utterly charming, with a length of what might be two city blocks.  We'll see tomorrow how high up the cliffs it goes.  We had a lovely dinner at Trattoria da Sandro.  Our hotel is basic and meager.  It's the top floor (5th?) of a building which houses apartments and perhaps another hotel and has no amenities like our apartments in Rome and Florence.  No elevator either.  The next morning found me making coffee with my camping filter, using hot tap water, drinking from the one plastic drinking glass supplied with the room.  Surprisingly not bad.