Monday - October 2, 2006

After an early breakfast we headed over to the duomo and were some of the first in line for the 8am opening of the steps to the top of the dome. This time it was 496 steps, another healthy climb! The fresco on the interior of the dome was pretty amazing, with a depiction of the devil eating someone and lots of "fire and brimstone" going on. Then it was time to head out in the car.

  • Stairway at the Hotel Savoy
    • Climbing the dome
    • Inside the Duomo

            We fired up Linguo and set it for Pisa. After about an hour we arrived at the city. Then began the hunt for parking! We turned left and right and left and right down tiny little windy streets. It was really crazy. Then we realized that we were in the middle of a pedestrian plaza full of people (a school campus, we think). Yikes! We carefully made our way off the plaza and back onto real streets, then looped around and after almost giving up, we finally found a space just down from the tower.
              • Restoration Work
              • Tower of Pisa

                We saw the cemetery, the baptistry and the duomo, as well as the tower. We headed towards Lucca and drove beyond it to the Ponte della Maddalena (also known as the "Devil's Bridge") where we stopped to take pictures and have an espresso. We drove into Lucca, a walled city about an hour from Florence and found Palazzo Alexander, our hotel for the night. It was a very nice small hotel (about a dozen rooms) and we had the top floor with a balcony. We wandered around the town and had a bite to eat, then sat up on the wall and watched the townspeople run, bicycle and walk around the city wall.
                        • Pisa Cathedral
                        • Ponte della Maddalena
                          • Our Mercedes A160

                          A bit later we left the hotel to find dinner. We walked around a bit and found a cute little place with outdoor seating and nice warm lighting. We talked a bit with a young couple from Manchester, which was fun. The food, unfortunately, was not so hot (think Gordon's fish sticks and canned garbonzo beans). We decided to go for a cocktail, but it was 10pm and everything was closing. After a bit more walking, Rick spotted a stairway leading down to a fun little basement bar where we had two drinks before winding our way back to the hotel.