Excursion to Pisa and Lucca

Monday, July 17, 2023
Tuscany, Tuscany, Italy
Itinerary - Today, the tour takes you to two true Italian gems. First of these is the wonderful city of Pisa, where, in the company of your guide, you'll have an opportunity to explore this mesmerising medieval treasure trove on the banks of the River Arno. Here, the broad green swathe of the Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles) is home not only to the startling Leaning Tower but also the huge circular Baptistery, the great marbled Duomo and the colonnaded Campo Santo cemetery.
After a fascinating visit, you’ll reboard the coach and journey to the elegant walled city of Lucca. This simply delightful Renaissance jewel was the birthplace of the composer Puccini, and the city’s most famous son is celebrated with a museum at his home. Elsewhere, the ancient cathedral, the Torre della Ore clocktower and the exquisite Piazza Anfiteatro (built around the Roman amphitheatre) are among the must-sees of this charming city.
OMG! The bags under my eyes are terrible, so I decided to use my eye mask to see if I can make any improvement. Not sure it worked!
As usual, I opted for muesli and yoghurt for breakfast wash down with a cup of coffee. Breakfast was quite leisurely until Daniela came in and told us all we were late. We decided to inform her that the notice in reception said 08.50am and the notice on the lifts said 08.40am however, both were wrong and it should’ve said 08.20am oh well, the fellow travellers just had to wait. Daniela wasn’t taking any of the blame, and instead told us it was all the receptionist fault.
We made our way to the Pisa where we were dropped off in a coach park and continued to the field of miracles on a land train, here we were greeted by our guide for the next hour. We walked through the market stalls and into the field of miracles to be greeted by the tower. We first stopped off at the baptistery and were told that the acoustics in this building were fabulous, and that they often had singing in there. Next we went into the abbey, and if you looked directly down the aisle, you could see that that was also on the wonk. Next on the agenda was the tower, the reason the tower is leaning is due to the wet soil it is built on. It is said that all of the buildings in the square are leaning for this reason and even the cypress trees are leaning. We were left to our own devises so I went to the ticket office so I could explore the baptistery and cemetery further. The coffins from the front of the cathedral were exhumed and moved into the purpose built cemetery, the crusaders took  earth from the from of the front of the cathedral as they thought it would get them to heaven. Not sure this is true! There were frescoes all around the walls and they are constantly restoring them which is what they should do. I went into the baptistery and walked up the 61 steps to the second floor so I could view the font. It was a wonderful building and I would imagine a great place to be baptised in. I was mindful that time was marching on and that I wanted to have a quick look around the market and also get a sneaky limoncello before boarding the train to get back to the coach. I got to the bar and had enough time for a quick beer and Limoncello to round of my time in Pisa. The odd couple from other hotel were on the trip today and boy was she struggling. She couldn’t even make it to the tower! Why the bloody hell did they book this trip? The only positive about them being on this trip is that you know you’re not going to be the last back to the coach. We got to the land train and all boarded fine, unboarding was a different matter, the gimpy woman got both of her feet out onto the step however, her arse wasn’t going through the gap lol Poor old Martin and Elaine thought they were going to be stuck on the train all day.
Once we were back on the coach, I had time to reflect on my fellow campers! There are the veggie people who I have established like to have a drink, the diabetic woman, with a weird husband, Mrs frog, neck and husband, Mr and Mrs midget, Mum, and two daughters, mum, dad, and son , mr off of the bus first and weird woman and quite a few silver surfers. The 11 in my hotel are great, the weirdest being 1 euro Dora and lap dog Dave.
On arrival in Luca, Daniella escorted us to the amphitheater which was in the heart of the town. I had a super quick mooch around and then decided that it was far too hot to be out in the Sun so I went for a pizza and wine. I managed to while away an hour and a half, so all that was left to do was a gentle stroll back to see the statue of Puccini as Luca was his birthplace. I can’t believe how hot and oppressive this holiday has been.
Walking the last 200 m back to the bus, we noticed that the dodgy woman had had an accident and the bus driver made her sit on a blue bin bag on the coach. When she got off at her hotel, the bus driver disinfected the seat and pulled the most awful face ever, as if to say the seat stunk. Thank God. She is not on the trip tomorrow as she is a bloody hindrance.
I had a couple of hours downtime once we got back to the hotel and I made the most of it by relaxing in my air-conditioned room with a bottle of Prosecco. Before I knew it, I needed to start getting ready for tonight gourmet meal (not sure it will be). The food was fine tonight and after dinner famous five, went and sat outside with beer from out mini bars chatting the night away. It was a relatively early night tonight as we are up early for a full on day tomorrow.

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2025-02-11

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