Pisa

On Wednesday, June 24th we headed up North to go to Pisa on our way to our next stop.  As I was reading, and told by a few people, a couple of hours is plenty in Pisa.  There really isn't that much to see.  So we stopped at Camp Darby to buy a few things at the commissary, have lunch and then headed up to Pisa.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is 200 feet tall, 55 feet wide and 14,000 tons and currently leaning at a five-degree angle.  It took two centuries to build this.  They tried to correct the leaning about the fourth story up.  David and I thought that if they didn't have an engineering mistake, Pisa might not be on the map.  You have to be 8 years old to climb up it now, so we didn't go to the top.  For awhile no children where allowed to climb it because a child fell from the top and died.

The She-Wolf from Siena is also here in Pisa.

I am not sure exactly what it is, but it looks really cool and it moves.

The boys do love horses!!!

So I have never seen these type of vending machines before.  We didn't try them, but I thought it was pretty neat!

The Piazza dei Cavalieri was once the seat of the independent Republic of Pisa's government.  It was the training place for the knights of its navy.  The statue of Cosimo I de' Medici shows the Florentine who ruled Pisa in the 16th century.

This is Piazza Garibaldi, named for the charismatic leader of the Risorgimento, the unification movement that led to Italian independence in 1870.

A view of the river that goes through the town, it looked pretty dirty and I would not want to fall into it.

There were more and more people coming all the time and it was hilarious to see all the pictures of people "holding up" the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

This is Pisa's Cathedral.  We decided not to torture the boys and make them go inside another Cathedral.

Here you can see the base of the tower and a little bit of the lean.

Daddy and Michael waiting for AJ.  Michael was just excited to be off his feet and inside someplace cool.

David and I in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  After that we headed back to the car and up to our next stopping place.  We headed up to Moneglia.

We had a great hotel room here, we had our own balcony with a great view!!!!  It was awesome!!!

I have deprived all three of my boys from TV this whole trip, they are all happy to be in an air conditioned room watching a little TV in Italian.

The boys found out we had WIFI at the hotel.   This was the first place on our vacation that had it.  They were excited about that, but one great thing is that they never complained that they didn't have it!

After a little computer time, we headed out to the beach.  The boys were so excited to go swimming, and then found out the water was a little cold.  Not too bad though.

Michael is always my first one in, I think sometimes his temperature gauge is broken.  ;-)

AJ finally making it in!!!

A view of the beach.  This one was a public beach, there are some that are private that you have to pay for, but the person at the hotel was extremely helpful and told us about this one!!

Daddy joining in.  We all decided to swim out to the rocks behind the boys.  They had a blast climbing on them and then jumping off them.  It was finally about 6:30 and we still needed to go back to the hotel, shower and get ready for dinner, so we called it quits.

Daddy and AJ enjoying the evening!!!

Michael and I having a great time too!!!  We played a game while waiting for our dinner and enjoyed each other's company.

Dinner time, we had pizza and pasta - who would have guessed it?!?

On our way home the sun was starting to set, here was the beach we were at earlier.  It is a lot emptier now.

Much more peaceful and calm!!

This is the view from our balcony!  We had to get to bed so we would be ready for our adventures for the next day!