Italia Day Six

Friday morning we woke up and met with our guide to head to a few more museums. I felt much better, but by this time I was sick of going to random museum with random tour guides. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand what an amazing opportunity I have and I want to learn as much as possible, but our schedule was pretty packed and a girl can only absorb so much. It’s also hard to travel in a big group and to not have the freedom to choose how to spend your time in a city. That being said, I am glad we went to Italy as a group, because there were certain monuments in Rome that would have been very difficult to see without waiting in line for hours had we not had a group pass.
Anyway, we went to a couple of just ok museums Friday morning that I am going to spare you the details about. We had a break for lunch and then we met to go to yet another museum, the Uffizi. Had it been my call, I would have skipped the two boring museums and spent all day there, because the Uffizi was marvelous. It was full of famous paintings and I could have stayed there for hours. In case you have not yet noticed, I love art museums. I really feel relaxed and at peace when I am in them. Unfortunately, my time was limited, but for a good reason: we had made plans to go see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and I was not about to miss it.
The train to Pisa was about an hour and a half, not far at all, but it was the first time a group of us had navigated the trains on our own (our travel guide was not with us, and I went with two other girls). Thankfully we figured everything out and had no trouble getting to Pisa at all. It had been sprinkling a little off and on all day, but when we arrived the skies were clear and beautiful. Encouraged, we decided to walk to the leaning tower instead of paying a Euro for the bus. Less than ten minutes into our walk, the heavens descended down upon us. Literally. I have never been as rain-soaked in my life. I was wearing a cotton skirt (mistake number one) that kept flying up in the wind, so Leah held it down for me while we walked and I help the umbrella over us. The whole thing was ridiculous. We walked that way for about twenty minutes, partly because we didn’t know the city well enough to find a bus and we figured we might as well just find the tower.
The rain slacked off a little by the time we reached the tower. The Leaning Tower is really leaning. Really leaning. I would not have been surprised if it had fallen then and there. For some reason the pictures do not do its tilted angle sufficient justice. It is not a huge tower, but worth seeing. It’s a touristy thing to do, but everyone who goes to Italy should do it anyway.
After we saw the tower, which honestly didn’t take very long, we ate dinner at a fabulous Italian restaurant. I had my first cup of real Italian hot chocolate. Italian hot chocolate come in two types: the kind that has the consistency of Hershey’s syrup and the kind that has the consistency of a thin chocolate pudding. So basically you have thick and thicker. I love that stuff. It really sticks to your ribs- one cup of that and you are good to go for hours.
By the time we got back to Florence, it was after ten. Our train was delayed, a common occurrence in Italy, so we spent a lot of time traveling. It was totally worth it though. I mean, there is only one Leaning Tower, right?