The Leaning Tower

Wednesday, May 2nd. Florence-Pisa-La Cetina. We started the day quite early. We had to check out of the apartment at 10 so we decided to visit Uffizi first, then pick up our rental car, and then grab our bags from the apartment.

Getting into the Uffizi was not as easy as the Accademia. We had made a booking online, but we had to pick up the ticket first. So, we waited in Door #3 to pick up the tickets. It was 8:30 and our tickets were for 8:15-8:30 entry. Apparently, you could only pick up your tickets starting from 10 minutes before your scheduled entry. There were people waiting in line in front of me who had 9:00 tickets. They were turned away and asked to wait in a separate line by the guy who checked the proof of purchase.

After we got our tickets, we had to go to Door#1 to enter the museum. This was a long line! In hindsight, Sean should have just waited in line for Door #1 while I went to get the tickets.

As we got closer to the door, the guard saw the stroller and asked us to follow him. He, basically, let us skip the entire line. We went straight to the security x-ray check, cleared it, took the elevator, and went up to the gallery.

Our first stop was Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Botticelli’s Spring. After we’ve seen these two, we were more relax with all the other ones.

The visit was quite rushed, actually. We were out of there by 9:20. It was too bad. We should have picked up the car first, check out of the apartment, and then visit Uffizi. Anyway…

From Uffizi, we walked to the car rental place. We thought getting the car was going to be fast. After all, we needed to get our bags out of the apartment by 10am.

When we got to the car rental office, there were so many people inside! We had a car reservation, but we still needed to take a number. We got #28. They were on #17. We went in all the way to the back so that we could have space to park the stroller and still be in the line of sight of the three ladies behind the counter. Just an observation: all the customer service people were all ladies, while all those who handled the cars were all men.

Arthur sat on the car seat quietly for quite a while. I had fed him at the Uffizi before we left, so he was quite content sitting in his car seat watching people.

30 minutes later, we were still waiting. I was now rocking Arthur to sleep. We had to text the Airbnb owner to let him know that we would be late. Thankfully, he understood our situation. However, we needed to be out of the apartment by 11am so that the new guests could drop off their stuff and hang on to the keys.

Another 15 minutes, and we were still waiting. Arthur was now sleeping in my arms. I was still standing. No one offered me their seats and I was not interested in asking anybody to move.

Then, one of the guys who handled the cars signaled one of the ladies and pointed at me. She nodded. 2 minutes later, she came up to Sean, ask for his queue number, and invited him to her counter. It was queue #24 but she said she would serve us first because of the baby.

After getting the car, we drove to the apartment, parked the car, gathered our stuff, made sure we left the place in order, got back in the car and left for Pisa. It was 11am when we left the apartment.

The drive to Pisa was straightforward. Not as scenic as I expected. As we approached the city, it started to rain.

We parked quite close to the tower complex… only a 3 minute walk. One of the street vendors selling umbrellas helped Sean find a parking space. As a token of our appreciation, we bought an umbrella from him. We now have a souvenir umbrella from Italy.

We spent some time in the tower complex taking pictures. Of course we tried doing what tourists would do: supporting the leaning tower, pushing the tower, stepping on the tower, kissing the tower. There are many failed photo attempts. All in good fun.

I was, actually, underwhelmed by the leaning tower. I thought it would be taller. The pillars were impressive, though, and the marble base was a surprise, but overall, I think I expected something different. Not sure what, just different.

It was a nice side trip nonetheless. The rain wasn’t too bad. I wish it was sunny, but it was all right.

We had lunch in one of the restaurants right by our car. The two plates of pizza we ordered were good. It reminded us of the pizza we had in Venice. Not as good, but good enough.

We left Pisa after lunch.

It took almost three hours to get to our Airbnb in La Cetina, including the grocery stop in Poggibonsi on the way there.

The apartment was on the second floor of a house in a very small village on a hill. The last 3 km, we had to drive through a small winding road that was not paved.

The apartment itself was spacious! And the surrounding area was beautiful. It was quiet. You couldn’t even hear the sound of cars passing by. All you could hear was the sound of birds chirping. It was so peaceful.