and on to the 2nd day - Pisa & Florence

Well I should continue on regarding Cinque terre... we finally wound our way down to the first town (this is a little strip of beach that has 5 villages)... we should have known something was up when we passed 2-3 miles of parked cars on the steep, narrow road... when we got to the bottom we found out that you couldn't drive into the town... you had to walk!!! well I hated to do it to Mary, but walking up and down a very steep hill 2-3 miles in each direction didn't sound like a fun time to me... it sounded plain awful... with all the people we talked to, no one told us about this... just told us to park and take the train through each of the towns... we didn't realize that driving wasn't even a possible option... We did see some lovely scenery though:


(we saw lots of tunnels throughout Italy)
Anyway, on to Pisa... and the leaning tower... we arrived in the evening, got a hotel and planned the trip into town for the morning... here's a picture from our hotel room: sunset and palm tree

then we parked in town and took a bus to the Tower of Pisa - it didn't cost us anything to get into the complex, but 8 euros (about $11) for each building... so we enjoyed them from the outside...

Mary is standing in front of the high wall that surrounds the complex...

and then there's me standing in front of the tower...

That afternoon we headed into Florence... every city seemed like a nightmare to drive into... the signage was terrible and our maps didn't give enough info... and then of course there was the language barrier... we finally found the center of town and parked the car... we walked down narrow streets along with hundreds of other people:


and then we came to the square:

here's a video - a sweep around the plaza...

Mary and I went to see "David" by Michaelangelo... again cost $$ to see... someone opened the exit door - we were able to peer in and saw it!! probably not the same as standing next to it... be we were a couple of girls trying to be thrifty...

We found a little street with outdoor cafes and had dinner...

(sorry, Mary hates this pic, but I didn't have any other during this time frame)
and our food (Mary had lasagna and I had pizza with gorgonzola cheese):

then off to the heart of Tuscany, Siena...