Friday, May 20, 2011

Chan Brothers Italy tour: Pisa, here we comes! (Day 3)- Part 1


This European tour is about hotels-hopping and hence our first night of sleep in Hotel Princess was just for 6 hours. My wife and I woke up at 6.30 am, Italian time, packed our luggage, proceeded for breakfast in the hotel, wore our winter jacket, and went down again, towing our luggage for the tour bus to come.

Today, we would be visiting Pisa, another part of Italy! When we talk about Pisa, we are definitely going to visit The Leaning Tower of Pisa!

I first came across the Leaning Tower of Pisa when I was in primary school. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is also an intriguing structure to me and hence I was naturally enthralled to visit the tower this day.

It took almost the whole morning by coach to arrive at Pisa. As Pisa was quite a controlled area, our tour coach stopped and the tour group took a public bus to reach Pisa.


The walls of the Pisa reminded me of the Great Wall of China. At this place, my wife and I saw really black men peddling their goods to tourists like us. I was real appalled to see a grey man, I am not kidding. The tour manager cautioned us against these men outside Italy as they could resort to tactics to overcharge tourists for their goods.

After a brief introductory of the eateries around the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the tour manager gave us about 2 hours for free and easy. My wife and I naturally made our way to the Leaning Tower of Pisa first.

Creativity juices flowed freely among tourists when they come to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. From afar, we flexed our creativity muscles as we adjusted our posed at varying distances to make interesting shots of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. When we finally reached the beautiful Tower which was cordoned off, I had to lie really flat on the ground, from a far distance just to take photos of my wife and helped others to take.


After the visit to the tower, my wife and I had our lunch at a restaurant, ordering 2 pizzas and a coke for Euro 15 dollars. As usual for Italian fare, the pizzas are salty. They do not taste like Singapore’s Pizza Hut but their thin crusts are endearing to our stomach.


As we waited for our tour bus after our meals, the black peddlars kept requesting us to purchase their umbrellas with the tower photo. It was after much consideration that we bought the beautiful umbrella at just 2 to3 Euro dollars.