Pisa, Italy

by docdivatraveller - 11/30/2017

For most of the people Pisa means the Leaning Tower. I am talking about general public and not true travellers. But Pisa has more to itself than the Square of Miracles or Piazza dei Miracoli. Its a small city in the wonderful state of Tuscany with an international airport of its own. The very Tuscan style houses can be found here with the calm river Arno flowing in the middle. As much as we would wanted to spend an extra day here exploring the city, we were short on time and could justice only to the Piazza Dei Miracoli. However during our twenty minutes walk from the station to the Square and back, we imbibed as much as we could from this beautiful little city.

Soaking in the early morning sun outside the Pisa Centrale station

We had an early train from La Spezia to Pisa. I was in no mood to leave La Spezia but then you know the story. It took one and half hours from there and we reached Pisa at half past eight. Then we submitted all our baggage in the station cloak room (it took euros) and then left for the Square of Miracles. Since we were travelling all our our luggage from La Spezia, we did not have any option but to deposit them.

Just outside the Pisa Centrale Station

The Pisa Centrale station itself is lovely. The ground is cobbled and there is a fountain outside. Since it was early morning and that too on a Sunday, it was almost deserted as per our standards :D
We walked and walked. Though we were confident that we were on the right path, still we asked a gentleman in the midway just in case. He turned out to be a Christ preacher. He handed us pamphlets about Christ and wanted us to embrace Christianity. Anyways I won't go into details.

Then we came to the serene Arno river; the river that drains a major part of Tuscany. We were almost on the verge of crossing the entire bridge when the inevitable happened. We spotted an Indian couple approaching from the other side who seemed very familiar. He was Ripun Bansal, a friend of my husband who was a great travel enthusiast. The very reason for their bonding was their insatiable appetite of exploring the world! We knew that they were visiting Paris and Italy during the same time but never knew we would accidentally bump into each other in a foreign land! They were coming back from the Miracle Square and were headed towards Florence. We had a hearty laugh together and of course a selfie over the Arno river.

I could stare at the Arno river forever...

The road never seemed long as the surroundings were so pretty. After all it was our first stop in sun kissed Italy. Again on the way we asked a couple about Torre Pendente. The guy laughed and said that he was a tourist and did not know anything local. i quickly turned to English and asked about the Leaning Tower and he pointed the direction in which we were heading. My husband ridiculed me like anything. he said that one can't expect to find locals in a tourist place like this and too so early on a Sunday morning! Actually the locals did not speak English and I was trying to employ my newly learnt Italian to the fullest :D

After a while we arrived at the Piazza Dei Miracoli.