We arrived in Pisa in the afternoon of the 1st July, and walked a short way to the B&B in the sweltering heat. Clearly we weren’t going to escape Italy’s soaring temperatures in Pisa! Arrived at the B&B which was in a great location, right in the middle of a busy pedestrianised shopping road which conveniently lead onto one of the main bridges in Pisa, which in turn crossed over to the university district, the leaning tower itself, and tons of bars, café’s, restaurants and small markets. The window from our room looked straight onto the street which was perfect for M and I as we often enjoy heckling passersby.
After we checked in, having adjusted to the Tuscan accent which we hadn’t really heard in Genova, we headed out into the surrounding area, browsed the small shops and markets, grabbed a primi piatta di pasta and eventually retreated to our humble abode to get ready before exploring the nightlife. Luckily we had constant wifi access in Pisa so we were able to check out exactly what goes down. We walked over the bridge to Lungarno, the road which runs all alongside the river where we found is where a lot of the evening socialising goes down. Here there is basically a botellon but on a larger scale. The youth of Pisa hang out on the walls on the river, drinking cheap drinks purchased from the ‘Blue Chinos’ bar or various other establishments, and a slightly older crowd hit the bars in Piazza Garibaldi. A great night was had, we met quite a few people - a group of anarchists and some noisy Sicilian’s to be specific.
Needless to say with cheap cocktails from the BC boys and a couple of glasses vino bianco della casa, we suffered from ridiculous hangovers the next day. Waking up to the heat of Pisa, we felt vile. We’re not sure why we decided that this day in particular would be the most appropriate of days to explore the small city and go and see the leaning tower, but we did. We walked through busy markets, checked out a string of deli’s, went to the leaning tower, attempted to take the tourist shots which proved very difficult under the circumstances, and eventually went back to our temporary home to feel sorry for ourselves/ digest the unmentionable amount of food we had consumed over the course of 5 hours.
After having spent a night in watching a film and having an early night, we spent the last day in Pisa running a few errands and again exploring all the small roads and less touristy parts of the city. In the night we treated ourselves to a meal (my paparedelle al cinghiale was amazing!), although for me it was ruined slightly as within about 5 minutes I had been attacked by mosquito’s and was beginning to really suffer. The heat was unbearable, and on what should have been the 5 minute walk back we found that there was a massive street party and awards show set up on the bridge we needed to cross, leaving us with no choice but to take a 20 minute detour to the next available bridge. We went out that night along the Lungarno to a couple of bars and enjoyed cocktails and wine for almost reasonable prices!
Really adored Pisa, although being so close to everything meant minimal amounts of movement which caused all the hundreds of panini’s and plates of pasta consumed over those few days to stay where they pleased.
Firenze
We decided to stay at a small guesthouse/hostel for a mere €12/night pp, and arrived to find that the place was run by the loveliest old lady who was such a gem. We were shown to our 5 bed mixed dorm and were quite pleased that we were (so far) the only habitants. After about half an hour, we were joined by a lone traveler from Sweden called PER. I called him Pear because it was ridiculously difficult to pronounce. He seemed nice although had said he was visiting friends so was never really at the hostel apart from during the nocturnal hours.
We headed out and about Firenze, went and saw Duomo which is beautiful(!) and continued on to see Piazza della Signoria and Piazzia Vecchio. When we got back to the hostel we discovered that two more dudes were staying in our room, both Spaniards who went by the names of Xurxo and Zoilo. We didn’t call them by their names as they were even more difficult than our fruity friend Per, so we dubbed them Shoe-shine and Thyroid. M and I went out for our one and only meal to be eaten at a restaurant in Firenze and were disgusted with the Chinese egg noodles swimming in a MG cornflour sauce, accompanied with soggy, out-of-a-tin shitake mushrooms. This was apparently ‘Tagliolini con funghi porcini’ – I THINK NOT. Went out for drinks at an overpriced bar right next to Duomo, full of skanky unpleasant American’s, but with our new Spanish friends we had a good time and headed back to the hostel early for a decent night’s sleep.
Decent night my ass! No a/c, Pear kept farting and snoring and the room smelt like sweaty butt crack. Bad times, sad morning, coffee and fag needed as soon as eyes were open, and we began our day feeling grubby and irritated. After we got over the bad sleep we spent the day exploring the city (as one does), eating food from supermarket deli’s and sweating buckets. Firenze is beautiful, however it’s such a shame it’s full of so many tourists. We wondered over the golden bridge onto the other ride of the river and found we much preferred it there. Less tourists, more beauty and the best part – more real.
Night time came and we agreed to hit the town with our Spanish friends, went back to overpriced bar previously mentioned, had a little botellon of our own and headed to a club called Twice. Interesting night but fun! Full of American’s it was really surreal being there – definitely did not feel as if we were in Italy.
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