Pisa

Packed up the camp and away by 10.30, destination Tuscany, via Pisa.

110km later and just hour on the AutoRoute, arrived in Pisa with the first goal being a new local sim card for my phone. After some hassle, needed an address, passport and cash only, I got my new sim from Fastweb. 10 euro per month for 300 minutes, 300 texts and unlimited data, 5GB of which is high speed. Amazing! Much better than Orange in France, which was 39 euro, and lasted only 2 weeks, and couldn’t be tethered, had to pay extra for that. This appears to have all the bells and whistles.

Phone done, lunch done, off to see the tower. We’d found the streets, and parking, to be a challenge, so the safest bet was to walk, not far in the end. And yes, the tower is definitely leaning, yet smaller than what I expected. There wasn’t a big queue to go up it, but being hot and having ben up many towers, the kids lacked a great deal of enthusiasm, oh well. Definitely a cool tower and an interesting story of how it starting leaving even while in construction, so they started compensating as they finished it. So yep, a little banana like ;-)

Many photos later, holding the tower up of course, it was time for a gelato, then back to the car and off to Tuscany. Only 80km, but a pretty slow drive, much of the roads were only 50kph, but still, a good way to se the countryside. Arrived in San Gimignano after an hour, then off to find our villa. Not to hard, 4km away form town, and we were met by Alessandro to show us around the house. Awesome location, with a pool, overlooking the Tuscan vineyards.

Once unpacked, into the supermarket to get a few supplies for dinner and breakfast, made a little more challenging by a huge rainstorm with full on thunder and lightning. Cleared however after an hour or two, enabling us to have a wonderful dinner by the pool, overlooking the countryside.

Perfect.