Italy - Pisa & Venice & Home

Sunday was once again spent traveling and on our way to Venice we stopped by Pisa to see the Leaning Tower. The Tuscany region is stunningly beautiful. It's probably my favorite zone of Italy. And the weather in Pisa that day was fantastic and sunny, a nice contrast to the cold in Florence the day before.

There isn't much to see in Pisa, aside from the Field of Miracles with the church, baptistery, and bell tower (the Leaning Tower), so we spent the afternoon lounging around on the grass, enjoying the weather and each other's company. We took all the cheesy, touristy photos "leaning" against the Tower and everything and eventually worked our way up to making pyramids in front of the Tower. We really wanted to do one with the whole group, but the biggest one we managed to make was with 10 people. For a bit of the afternoon, several of us rented these bike-things to ride around the city. That was fun (and some good practice for driving!).

Supporting the Tower. haha

The church and the Tower.

The bike-car-thingy we rented.

Later they kicked us off the grass, so not long after that we headed on towards Venice. That night though, we went out on the town to celebrate Josh's 18th birthday. We went out to a bar/club and then headed back to round up the night on the beach in front of our hotel.

Venice was definitely one of my favorite stops we made. Monday, we woke up and went to the boat that would take us to Venice. Technically, Venice is part island and part mainland city, but the city that everyone thinks of as Venice is the island part. There was a problem with our tour guide, meaning we had some free time, so a small group of us that were interested went and found the cheapest priced gondola ride we could. It was 80€, but since we split it between the 6 of us, it wasn't that bad. And getting to ride around Venice through the canals in a gondola was definitely worth it. Our guide finally showed up and we were shown around the city and St. Mark's Square and inside St. Mark's and the other main sights, like the Doge's Palace and the Bridge of Sighs. We got to see a glass-blowing demonstration, which was astounding (the rapidity of the glass-blower to make a beautifully crafted vase mainly). After that, we were free to wander the city and some of us went to see the Rialto Bridge.

Evan and Caitriona with our gondolier, Antonio.

Standing on the Rialto, overlooking the Grand Canal.

St. Mark's Basilica and St. Mark's Square.

Tuesday was the worst day because it was our last day together. We were all exhausted from having stayed up the night before hanging out and signing postcards, kinda in the style of yearbooks or whatnot. I didn't have that many postcards, so I had people write their notes in my Rick Steves' Italy guidebook that my (real) parents had given me. I did that, because I was constantly passing it out to people or referring to it to explain things to people. I was declared the "unofficial tour guide" within the group. haha...
Anyways, we spent Tuesday sleeping on the bus to Milan and then flying from Milan to Madrid, where we ended up missing our train since the flight had been slightly delayed, and we made our goodbyes and headed to the train station to get our tickets changed and we came home.

All in all, they were some of the 9 best days of my life and I made 22 amazing new friends (or deepened an already existing friendship).

Currently listening to:
Song: Running Out Of Days
Artist: 3 Doors Down
Album: Away From the Sun