On Day 7 we headed to see one of the wonders of the world Leaning Tower of Pisa. After a lovely breakfast in Cinque Terre we took a 2 hour train to Pisa.
Pisa is known to have a lot of pick pockets so we walked carefully and attentively through the hordes of tourists at the Pisa train station. With our passports tucked in the money belt we were less worried. We started walking from the train station to the leaning tower which is quite a bit of walk.
Pisa is a typical Italian city with narrow beautiful streets, colorful houses, beautiful piazzas (squares). By now we kind of knew what to expect :). We kept marching ahead and reached the leaning tower of Pisa. Well, the leaning tower really LEANS :) ... it leans quite a bit. The Pisa tower is one of the four buildings that make up the cathedral complex which is called Campo dei Miracoli or Piazza dei Miracoli which means Field of Miracles. There is a beautiful cathedral and couple of other magnificent buildings in the piazza. Check out the video below which gives a overview of the place.
Leaning tower is a medieval engineering marvel which is about 8 stories tall and is made up impressive white marble columns and arches. It sort of looks like a huge wedding cake which got knocked off a little :).
We took the standard touristy pictures with the pose of trying to hold the falling tower as it leans. There were hundreds of people there taking a similar picture. There were lots of Indian tourist groups here.
The tower looked really beautiful and is well worth a visit. We spend some time in the garden there admiring the marvelous tower.
The hike from Monterosso to Vernazza takes about 1.5 hours one way and on the way back you can just catch the train. We started hiking around 7 pm. We had earlier in the day bought the tickets for the hike but if you hike after 7 pm it is free. So we basically wasted our money on the tickets which we never used. By 7 pm the weather was pleasant and just perfect for the hike. As we started the hike the initial part was fun and mostly easy. But then there was a huge stretch of steps which literally killed us, at least me. Rakesh and Rishi Bhaiya seemed to be doing OK or maybe they were just pretending to make fun of me. Needless to say, the views of the sea and mountains and the towns which were now dazzling with all the street lights were spectacular. There were lots of pretty wild flowers on the way. We just soaked up the fresh air and beautiful views on the hike. 
Finally we reached Vernazza and weren't in mood of eating dinner due to our heavy Indian lunch. So we just grabbed some fruits from a local vendor and headed back to relax in our cosy B&B.
Check out more pics here.
 |
| Eating breakfast at a road side cafe with beautiful sea views |
 |
| beautiful town of Pisa |
Pisa is a typical Italian city with narrow beautiful streets, colorful houses, beautiful piazzas (squares). By now we kind of knew what to expect :). We kept marching ahead and reached the leaning tower of Pisa. Well, the leaning tower really LEANS :) ... it leans quite a bit. The Pisa tower is one of the four buildings that make up the cathedral complex which is called Campo dei Miracoli or Piazza dei Miracoli which means Field of Miracles. There is a beautiful cathedral and couple of other magnificent buildings in the piazza. Check out the video below which gives a overview of the place.
Leaning tower is a medieval engineering marvel which is about 8 stories tall and is made up impressive white marble columns and arches. It sort of looks like a huge wedding cake which got knocked off a little :).
We took the standard touristy pictures with the pose of trying to hold the falling tower as it leans. There were hundreds of people there taking a similar picture. There were lots of Indian tourist groups here.
The tower looked really beautiful and is well worth a visit. We spend some time in the garden there admiring the marvelous tower.
On our way to the tower we located a Indian restaurant as we were craving some curry after eating Italian food for several days now. So we headed back to the Indian restaurant. The restaurant was owned by a very sweet man who was originally from Chennai. We made small talk with him and he told us how he came to Pisa and that he has been living in Italy for 18 years with his family. He served us awesome tadka daal, rice, naan and curries. Our taste buds were totally satisfied and we thanked him for serving us amazing food. Pisa had lot of Indian and Bangladesh shops and restaurants. Happy with our meal and sight seeing we headed back to Cinque Terre in the afternoon.
It was almost 6 pm by the time we reached back. The only thing left to do in Cinque Terre was the scenic hike which spans across the five towns. The entire hike takes about 5 hours but the most scenic and difficult part of the hike is from Monterosso to Vernazza. The tourists that we met there were telling us how their feet were aching from the difficult hike. But our feet had become used to the constant walking and had stopped complaining. Also we were totally happy about our routine of applying tiger balm and massaging our feet before going to bed so that they were ready to tackle the next day.
 |
| Starting the hike |
 |
| beautiful town of Vernazza in the background |
Finally we reached Vernazza and weren't in mood of eating dinner due to our heavy Indian lunch. So we just grabbed some fruits from a local vendor and headed back to relax in our cosy B&B.
Check out more pics here.
Supria..While reading your post I felt that I am back in time. We had exactly same feeling when we saw the Pisa-it is such a small town-and we too ate the Indian food in Pisa only.
ReplyDeletethanks Nidhi..
ReplyDelete