Pisa and Lucca

Thursday was a rainy rainy day, but we braved the elements and set off to do some touristing.
And it was well worth it.
We skirted Florence and stopped in beautiful Lucca to wander the streets and have lunch.

We parked just inside the amazing old city walls and wandered up via Vittorio Emmanuele towards the Palazzo Ducale and the Cathedral.
It was raining heavily and we bought two fantastic big umbrellas from an umbrella vendor in her stall to replace the two bad ones we'd bought from Roman street vendors a couple of weeks prior which had of course broken within days of purchase.....
The town was beautiful and the shopping looked great....unfortunately the town closed for lunch just as we arrived at 1pm..

Then after a leisurely lunch, we piled back into the car and headed for Pisa and rainbows:

PISA

It stopped raining just long enough for us to enjoy the sights; the beautiful baptistry, the Duomo, the Camposanto and of course the leaning Tower. So much white marble and beautiful stonework.

You had to be 8 years and older to be permitted to climb the leaning tower, so we pretended just a little with Eve and she, Cas, Chiara and I climbed the 270 steep and slippery steps to the top. Pretty precarious. And at 15 euro a head for the 20min climb, it wasn't cheap.....

It poured all the long, dark and scary trip home.