Pushing the Tower over!

From the desk of signor Gook

Sitting on the very fast train from Florence to Rome, so fast that whenever you go through a tunnel you get ear compression, it’s like the tilt train to north Queensland but faster. As we left Florence we could see a lot of snow on the hills about us, this wasn’t here 4 days ago, so we are wondering what it will be like back at Introdacqua, hopefully white.
Must comment on our trip to Pisa, Linda I said, you can’t go to Italy and not go see the leaning Tower, its like going to Sydney and not seeing the opera house or the bridge. I now have a new name for Pisa, it’s called expensive piss weak world.
It all started by getting tickets in Florence for the 1 hr trip to Pisa, we got sold the tickets ok, then we couldn’t find the train we are to take, mind you there are about 20 tracks going in and out of this place and everything is in Italian. No one told us that we caught a train with a completely different NAME to get to where the ticket said. So to find out information I go back to the ticket people and they just point to a sign that says “no train information” Are you kidding you just sold me the bloody ticket……. So I finally find a small room with one rapidly ageing Italian man being harassed about very similar issues I was having and by least 20 other people, …finally…….. I find out which train and which track and we had 2 minutes to find it so we ran…and made it. So we sit and laugh about a little hiccup and look forward to Pisa, ( which I keep calling Pizza, ) Then along came a conductor who checks the ticket and fines us for not validating the train ticket….wonderful, another thing tourists must learn by osmosis!!!! Usually$40 euro fine each but he was happy to drop it down to $5. There were about another 6 people caught on our carriage alone. Nice money spinner huh?

We finally get to Pisa, its cold, very cold , windy and grey sky. We walk what felt like 45 km through the center of town which is filled with cheap market stalls, one even had boomerangs and didgeridoos made out of bamboo, how authentic is that? We finally get to the tower which is not as big as we imagined, but it is surrounded by lovely palace and church and huge big green lawns, about the first I have seen in Italy. Hooray I said things are looking up, we got the mandatory picture of us holding up the tower and found out that you are not allowed on the five hectares of grass, you must pay the equivalent of one full years income to go in or on or around any building or purchase anything from the gift shop.( should call it the extortion shop as nothing in it was a gift) and to top it all off I find that to climb to the top of the tower which is slowly falling over, after paying a fortune to do so, you have to walk on the outside of the tower to get to the very small ledge on the top, my vertigo kicked in at ground level, Linda wouldn’t even do it, so we called it a day, ran the gauntlet of the Somalia hard sell designer bags and went back to Florence.

Just on the Somali hard sell, they are every where, great if you want a genuine Rolex at 10 dollars ( guaranteed special price just for you ) or handbags or wonderful original works of art, they travel in packs and are at times a little threatening. Typical though it is illegal to buy off them. A fine of 5000eu or about $8000 the shop keepers here hate them as they take or scare away business, and apparently the police have given up charging them… anyway what’s the old saying , buyer beware!!









The handbags are awesome! A little clutch purse with a light that turns on when you open it...and a guitar that had an inbuilt speaker for you ipod...we didn't even know we needed that!!!
That Mona Lisa Had some issues...
A new instrument for alex to try...piano accordian darling!!!
The lights of florence.