An uneventful afternoon flight takes us from London Gatwick Airport to Pisa International Airport. We’re staying in a really lovely Airbnb just a couple of streets from the Tower of Pisa.

The owner Sheba (who is so gorgeous) left us a cold bottle of prosecco to enjoy simply because we were so far from home. She also left breakfast including croissants and danishes – such a wonderful touch. If you’re looking for a spot to stay in Pisa let me know and I’ll provide you with her details.

The Tower at night (about 9.30pm) is fantastic, we had the place almost to ourselves. I apologise that in the photo above it does appear that the tower is in fact not really leaning, I swear this is not in fact the case. Talk about the lean started way back in the 12th century and despite some work in the 1990’s it still has a tilt of 3.97 degrees. It’s freaky.

It’s a lot different in the day time, but I’ve somehow managed to get a photo above without lots of people. Now if you enjoy watching people trying to set up the perfect photo this is the place for you. It is fabulous watching people take photos of themselves, their loved ones or other random tourists holding the tower up or trying to push it over. I could have stayed here for hours simply people watching.

You can climb up the 251 or so steps to the top of the tower at the cost of €20.00. Given our time constraints we simply enjoyed a walk through this lovely little town, had some lunch from a rustic looking deli and of course gelati.

Of note, in our wanders, I came across Felice Cavallotti. Cavallotti was a left leaning politician, poet and dramatic author who died at the age of 56 after being seriously wounded in a dual with a conservative journalist. This was his thirty third dual, apparently he had quite the temper 😳 and he liked some drama. Can you imagine if disagreements were still sorted out this way?

Back to Pisa, it is the perfect place to land if you are Cinque Terra or Florence headed. Arriving into Italy through the Pisa airport was seamless, a quick and inexpensive taxi ride got us to our accommodation. We had just the right amount of time to see the Tower (both in the night and daytime) before jumping (not sure this is an accurate description 🤣) on a lunchtime train to Rapallo where we are staying for four nights.