You can see pictures from this day here.
We woke up in the morning to sun streaming through the windows and a much less scary environment. The bed was easy to sleep in, and in the daylight everything looked airy and comfortable.
We headed out the door to get started with our sightseeing. First we caught a train out of town to Pisa – of leaning tower fame. The train ride was just over an hour, and we arrived quickly and headed out into the town. I was surprised with Pisa itself. It was a nice quiet town, and all the touristy tower things were far enough away that the town remained independent of them.
We got out to the tower and looked around the area. It was a beautiful clear day, and although it was pretty windy, we had a good time taking lots of pictures and looking at all the cheesy souvenirs. The leaning tower was pretty big, but not as tall as I had imagined. There were tons of people around, and lots of them were taking pictures with them holding up the tower by standing in the foreground. I declined to take a picture like that – it was more fun to take pictures of people taking pictures like that.
We had some pasta and cheese at a local restaurant for lunch. I ordered a big Moretti beer to drink with lunch, and Kuniko ordered a Bellini – a peach flavored alcoholic drink that was pretty good. After lunch, we headed back to Florence. There we did even more sightseeing – statues, fountains, plazas, squares, you name it. There are many famous museums in Florence, but I was really trying to avoid all but the major ones. I’m the kind of person that breezes through a museum without reading al the captions – I just want to see the artwork and move on.
For dinner I wanted to eat the local specialty, Bistecca Il Fiorentino. It’s a huge T-bone steak, and I love meat so it was a happy coincidence that it was Florence’s signature dish. We found a restaurant right next to the Duomo, and sat down for an early dinner. The waiter spoke English, which was nice. He was a little annoying and pushy, though. Maybe he was trying to be friendly, but he ended up sounding like a jerk. To make matters worse the CD that was playing would play about 45 seconds, then skip back 45 seconds and repeat itself.
To make up for the crappy service and repetitive music the steak was delicious. We had it with a Naples-style pizza with buffalo-milk mozzarella and Kuniko had ordered some pasta, too. Everything was awesome – we have yet to be disappointed with a meal here.
In the evening we took a few more pictures, then went out for some gelato and went back to our hotel. It wasn’t nearly as scary as it seemed the first night, and we tucked into bed early with our stomachs full.
