That tower really is leaning - UK to Pisa Italy

After a lovely breakfast of Gluten Free Hot Cross Buns and Mykonos logistics planning, we were chauffeured to the airport. The top left pic is to prove it was 6C when Karen dropped us off at Luton and to show you how bleak the UK weather was. The top right is a pic Karen took of us on the 15 minute walk from the drop off area to the terminal. It would be fair to say our whole Luton experience was chaotic, sooooo many people, so much queuing and the constant jostling. Luckily Steve purchased us expensive tickets so we were in the priority boarding queue and didn't have to measure our handluggage (Ezijet doesn't  weigh your overhead bags and I suspect mine is closer to 8kgs than 7). He also bought us exit row seats so we had good legroom. I'm sure you all know about Ezijet so won't report on the flight experience. 

Above. The bottom two photos are from Pisa where we took the tourist monorail called PisaMover from the airport to the train station saving us about 20 minutes of walking,  then walked a further 20 minutes to our beautiful accommodation. 

Right. It is prettier than I recall, especially away from the train station. In these pics taken as we walked. Top right is one of the long streets we walked down whcih reminded me of Venice to be fair, narrow. pretty and scary when a tiny car or motorbike zips past you. Top left is just because. 

We emerged in a massive square with very large stately buildings and I realised our accommodation was just through the arch at the bottom of this one (bottom left) we walked through and there it was. 

After lots of codes on doors we came into our tiny but absolutely exquisite room. Pity we're only here for one night to be honest but we have a packed itinerary ahead. After the interesting flight path we took to get here with so much airspace to be avoided right now we can't help but wonder whether we'll be back anytime soon. Back to Pisa. 

Just look at this view from our balcony. I love these walled gardens, you walk past them everywhere but can't see over the walls to look in so it is such a treat to be able to look into them from the vantage of the first floor. 

It was 5pm so we took a quick bio break, took photos form our balcony, I changed as it's 14C here not 6C so I was hot, there is a cold breeze so the beanie I borrowed from Karen was still necessary. The walk to the plaza of wonderful buildings took us about 5 mins cause we snapped lots of pics. We rounded a corner and there it was sticking out above the buildings in the sunshine, quite a site. 

To be honest our photos look like they are photoshopped (or AI'd) the colours here and the sunshine make them look surreal. Needless to say it was tourists galore. I remember Mike and I sitting on the grass and taking the iconic hold the tower up photos. The grass is a no go area so people are confined to a few paths and it was carnage trying to keep out of other peoples shots or take one with nobody in view. We also saw our first influencer here. 

Unlike 34 years ago you can now walk up the tower, we decided that wasn't for us today so we just wandered and took picks of the many buildings. I don't remember the Capitoline Wolf (the one with Romulus and Remus suckling) being here, I looked it up and it's a replica but impressive all the same. 

No idea who the bronze angel is but he was pretty impressive scale wise. 

As you can tell I can't work out how to have two pics in a same row so the layout takes up alot of space. Bear with me. We spent about an hour at the square (I think it's called) and took about 100 tower photos. 

Then we wandered the streets again. It was reasonably quiet, mostly tourists of course, the cold wind was biting so we found ourselves a bar with a heater for a 4 euro Aperol Spritz and read reviews of where to eat between where we'd ended up and our hotel. 

We found a lovely wee pizza joint where the guy who makes the pizzas greets you and tries to guess where you are from - he thought we were French which is such a compliment because we were not dressed that well. He then exclaimed his love for the All Blacks and our beautiful country before another waiter tore us away to our table. 

As you can see in the pic below we opted for the 4euro ($8) half litre of wine each, Steve's Red mine White. No idea what the variety is but it tasted good. 

I got the most wonderful rocket and cheese pizza, and Steve ordered the grand calzone, neither of us could finish especially after our salade caprise to start. Was yum. We dined at the early hour of 7:30pm so the place was full of tourists of every nationality (the probably all read the same reviews as us) which was quit cool really. Guessing the Italians don't come in for dinner until after 9pm. 

Full and tired we wandered home and took plenty more photos. 

Writing this at 5am again, and finally posting it at 6:30am. Just read the article Paul D shared in the comments and Libby messaged about saying we're heading into a nightmare time for Cinque Terre today - ce la ve - we're booked and going. You can look forward to hearing about how it turns out! More pics from around Pisa below. Ciao.