Off to Italy-first stop Pisa

It is Wednesday, October 25. Beautiful day to start our 9 day driving trip to Italy and also to celebrate, from afar, Nicholas' 21st birthday! We spoke with him last night to sing and wish him a happy day tomorrow and hear of his plans for celebrating throughout the weekend. Watch out Newport!

Nick and I picked Sarah up from her half day at school at 11am and headed east on the A8/Auto route. Not much traffic but lots of road work narrowing us down to single lanes much of the way. LOTS of tunnels!! We had planned to stop and eat our picnic lunch in Cannes, which we thought would take us about 2 hrs to reach, but we blew by there in just over and hour so kept on going and ate our lunch in the car. In fact, we reached the French/Italian border in just 2 hrs. there was no big fanfare about this arrival....we approached one of many tunnels and the signs were in French and when we emerged from the tunnel they were in Italian! No other event, no border check or anything. We're in the EU!



We noticed the landscape changed dramatically after crossing the Italian border. Here we were right on the steep hills which plunged down to the water. All the hillsides were terraced and everything was so green. Much of the terraced land was covered with greenhouses and little homes tending the same. We don't know what they were growing-Nick suggested marijuana!

Susie got a kick out of the huge semi's cruising along on the highway with a little sign on their back ends which read "vehiculo longo"…..no kidding!! Our collective favorite though is the computerized woman's voice wishing us "Arrivederci" after you pay the tolls on the autostrada.

Just south of the last of the major tunnels, the Italian Alps jetted up into the sky, creating their own eco system, and the most majestic of sights. Out of nowhere these beautiful peaks appear, carved so sharply and very steep. As we closed in on their base, there were acres and acres, maybe miles, of stone blocks the size of small Volkswagens carefully stacked and color coded throughout these, for lack of a better word, quarry yards. Looking high up into the mountains to our east you could clearly see where the 'mining' of this stone takes place. We figure they are ready for shipment throughout the world. Who knows maybe some of this stone was used for the leaning tower? Or possibly someone's kitchen counter tops in Duxbury?




Our plan was to follow the autostrada to Lucca, where we wouldspend the night, but as we got closer, Nick suggested we take a quick detour to Pisa, which was right nearby. We arrived in Pisa around 4pm and found the Leaning Tower by following a tourist bus as we had no idea where we were. Rather than climb to the top of the tower, we opted for wandering around a bit, getting a gelato and sitting on a beautiful lawn area and enjoying the warm, afternoon sunshine, the people and absorbing the fact that we were in Italy!