Volterra and Pisa, Italy

4 May 2017

We managed to leave the hotel pretty early because we had three hours of driving and two cities to visit before getting to our AirBnB in Florence.  After leaving the hotel we grabbed a panini for breakfast and walked downhill to the parking lot as is always the case since it seems most of these ancient cities are built on top of hills.

We arrived at Volterra just after 10:00 AM which was awesome since we beat most of the other tourists and had no problem finding and parking in a parking lot.  As usual, we walked from the car to the start of the Rick Steve's walking tour that he outlined in his travel guide, and as usual, the tour started at an entrance arch (Port all'Arco).  This arch was pretty cool because it was actually a Etruscan arch built over 2,000 years ago.  By the way, the Etruscans came before the ancient Romans, so we are talking old.

We then continued the tour through this amazingly unspoiled ancient town:

City Hall (circa 1200)

What is an ancient town without a Roman Theater built during the first century A.D.

The next photo has one of those really cool trees that grow along walls.  Tim told me to turn around and I had no idea that I was passing this tree until I looked at the photos on the computer.

Cool vine-like tree

Following the Rick Steve's walking tour, he said to go down an alley and find a studio with Roberto Chiti and Giorgio Finazzo at work.  Sure enough, there they were sculpting away on alabaster sculptures. 

Raw alabaster under finished sculptures.

After a few hours of walking around Volterra, it was time to head to Pisa just over a 1 hour drive away.  We arrived and was hitting traffic just as a parking lot appeared, so we headed in to find it was free, but a 30 minute walk to the start of the Pisa walking tour.  The good news is that since Pisa is a seaport town, it is flat and not on the top of a mountain.

On the way to the start, we stopped at a Kebob restaurant just to "get lunch done" and headed on for the tour of Pisa.  We arrived at a river crossing with incredible buildings along it.

Arno River

Who would have thought there was a Keith Haring wall in Pisa?

About halfway through the walk, the travel guide mentioned a really good gelato place, so of course we had to try it.  This place had some strange flavors of which I selected two.  One with rosemary and pine nuts, and the other with ricotta cheese and black olives. I have to tell you, it was quite weird eating ice cream and then having to chew up a black olive.  It was interesting and worth the try, but I don't think I will order that flavor again.  Tim when with two scoops of salted almond...pretty safe.

We continued the tour, and when we arrived in the Piazza dei Cavalieri (Knights' Square) we were met by a Star Wars parade celebrating "May the Force/Forth day"...how awesome is this?!?  Especially with the incredible 12th century buildings flanking the square.

We must have been in Pisa for at least 1.5 hours until we finally got a glimpse of the famous tower:

Aha...there it is.

Of course we had to take the obligatory "holding the tower up" photos: 

Two more of the many photos Tim took of the tower.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa was really is cool to see in person.  I was afraid it would be a letdown, but it really wasn't.  We tried to get into the church next door, but there was a 1 hour wait and our AirBnB host was anxious for us to get to Florence, so we walked the 25 minutes back to the car and headed to Florence.

1.5 hours later we arrived in Florence.  As soon as we were checked in and relaxing a bit we decided to add one more night to our already 2 night stay, so we now have 2 full days to enjoy the birthplace of the Renaissance.