Pisa e Viareggio

My first day in Tuscany was spent most appropriately. After a quick italian-style breakfast of tea and biscuits with jam, Lydia drove Alice and I about 30 minutes away to a little old town named "Pisa". Despite it's world-wide aclaim, Pisa is in fact a very small and quiet town. The main attractions (The Cathedral, Baptistero and Leaning Tower) are kept separate by a brick wall, as they were part of the ancient Pisa hundreds of years ago when there were only three main important cities in Italy, Pisa being one of them. So walking out of the tiny little town and through the gates into the ancient city you find quite an out-of-place, but beautiful, sight.

The Baptistero

Firstly, Alice and I went and bought tickets for the three of us to going inside the attractions. However, finding that it was €18 to climb the tower, we decided only to see the inside of the Cathedral and Baptistero - maybe next time!

First, we went into the Cathedral. Of course, it was stunning, but very different to Florence as the architecture is from a completely different time period. The Cathedral was especially interesting thanks to the many, many saints whose tombs are on display in the Cathedral.

The skull of the Patron Saint of Pisa...uh

I was most blown away by the absolute detail in every piece of the Cathedral

The body of a saint

Another tomb

Next, the Baptistero. If you hadn't guessed it from the name, the Baptistero is literally just a huge building used only for Baptisms. Like Florence's Cathedral, the Baptistero has a large Dome roof, however this one is not painted like Florence's.

The Baptistero from the outside

Unpainted dome ceiling

The best part about this was that you could climb to a higher landing to look down at the inside of where the Baptisms are done.

A view of Pisa and the nearby mountains from a window I found climbing to the higher landing of the Baptistero

The higher landing does a complete circle around the building, so Alice managed to take this photo when I was opposite her and you can see just how big it is!

Finally, of course, the leaning tower! I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed joining the hundreds of people sprawled across every spare piece of ground to get the classic "holding up the leaning tower" photo. The ultimate Italy experience!

The leaning tower of Pisa!

Saving the world, one leaning tower at a time

Mr. Leaning-Tower gave me his number and now we're best friends

Alice and I

Exiting the town I also took a minute to stop and entertained by the souvenir stalls that line one side of the ancient city.

Monument pasta! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

By far the very best souvenir I have yet seen in Italy - a leaning mug of Pisa. Absolutely hilarious.

Leaving the ancient city!

We then returned to Viareggio for a lovely lunch of Lydia's best pasta and pesto.

Views of the snow covered mountains and Tuscan countryside driving back from Pisa

At 3pm in the afternoon my birthday, by Australian time, officially began! Alice and I celebrated by jumping up and down excitedly for a few minutes before taking a couple of Lydia's bikes for a riding tour of Viareggio. Viareggio is a wonderful town with a very, very long walk along the seaside which is lined with clothing and food and book stores alike. Here is also where the Carneval parade would be held in a few days and already there were many stalls of sweet foods and confetti and Carneval-style games setup. After a while we left our bikes tied to a pole and spent some time shopping and eating. My first birthday gift from Alice was an Italian pastry I had never tried before, called "budino di riso".

The wonderful pastry store we went into in Viareggio

Budino di riso

Leaving the pastry store, I spotted in between two buildings a stunning sunset over the sea!

In Italy, often going to the beach is not free as the beaches are lined with different "bagni" where you go and pay to use their part of the beach and they supply you with a bathroom and an umbrella or chair on the beach. The Bagni are named after different places, people, fish, etc. and we found one named Alice!

After some more shopping, we stopped over at the chain Gelato cafe in Italy called "Grom" (the same place where I had my first Gelato in Milan) and here I tried my first European hot chocolate. They are ridiculous! Where in Australia a hot chocolate is more like hot milk with chocolate flavouring and cream on top, in Europe a hot chocolate is quite literally, melted chocolate. It is incredibly rich and heavy, I don't know how I finished it all, even when it came in such a tiny little cup.

My first european hot chocolate!
Or, Cioccolato Caldo as the Italians would say

Eventually the light got darker and we heard that Chiara, Massimo, Filippo and Louise were arriving from Milan in time for dinner, so we headed back home, and I ended my night with a video call home to receive birthday wishes from Australia :)

I managed to get a couple of screenshots during the talk with Mum, Dad, Ben, Popper, Grandma, Aunties, Uncles and Cousins alike who were having a breakfast to celebrate my Grandfathers birthday :)

Popper and Grandma even tried to learn how to use Facetime, for the sake of my birthday :')