Dateline June 5, 2016, Pisa, Siena and Cinque Terre
Florence made a fine base, and over several days we took the trains out into the rest of Tuscany and beyond.
Pisa. Everyone told us the leaning tower was not worth the trip. But how do you come this far and not go and see it? We rode our rail passes to Pisa, and not knowing quite how far the tower was from the station, we took our first taxi of the whole trip, a small surrender after weeks of public transport and our own two feet. The tower really is amazing, and how it keeps standing is anybody's guess.
We had a coffee and a tea sitting and looking at it, then walked back toward the station, crossing the river, where the old houses along the water made a lovely view. Our next stop down the line was Siena.
Siena. This one we had been told by many not to miss. It is a long climb up from the train station, so we took the public bus partway, got off a little early, and walked down into the great square, the Piazza del Campo.
There is nowhere else quite like it, a shell-shaped bowl sloping down to its center, paved in red brick laid in a fishbone pattern and divided into nine bands of pale stone, one for each member of the Council of Nine who governed Siena in the 1300s. It was magnificent. We sat down and had some wine, and as it turned out we sat just in time, because the afternoon rain came on, as it had every day since we reached Florence. We had meant to see more of the city, but instead caught a taxi back to the train. The driver was a memorable one. He had worked twenty years as an engineer and had recently been let go, replaced by someone younger and cheaper, so he had bought himself a cab and gone into business for himself. Entrepreneurship at its finest.
Cinque Terre. The next morning we headed for Cinque Terre, five old fishing villages strung along the rugged Ligurian coast of the Italian Riviera. We rode the regional train from Florence and got off at the southernmost village, Riomaggiore, a cute place of little shops and extraordinary views. Our plan had been to walk the path to the next village, Manarola, but it was closed, so we hopped the train, skipped a couple of stops, and rode up to Vernazza.
Vernazza had a little beach, and we sat down to lunch and watched the college kids sunning themselves along the rocks.
You can hike up and down the hills and take in all five villages, but that is a full day's work, and we decided climbing mountains was not the plan for us.
We were glad we made the trip, and gladder still that we had saved it for the one day with no rain in the forecast. It was beautiful.
Dining in Florence. Our last day we simply wandered Florence's narrow alleys, past one church and museum after another, and it is a beautiful city to be lost in. We should say a word about the restaurants, too. The first evening we picked a beef place with glowing reviews on Yelp, not far from the flat. There was a short line, and what struck us was that nearly everyone in it, and inside, was Chinese. We could not work out why, but we got in line, ordered the Porterhouse like everyone else, and it was wonderful, even as we kept puzzling over it. Other nights we ate at small local spots with excellent food and that fine local wine at six dollars a half-liter.
On our last night we sat near two young Chinese women who were in Florence to train with Ferrari, and who told us that more Ferraris are sold in China now than anywhere in the world. They were ordering by showing the waiter pictures on their phones, and one was startled to learn she had picked rabbit and chose again. Talking with them, we learned that Chinese travelers often photograph their food and write their reviews of the pictures, because most cannot read a foreign menu, and that this is how they choose both their restaurants and their dishes, all on a Chinese version of TripAdvisor. That solved the mystery of the beef place.
Then it was time to say goodbye to Florence and our wonderful flat, and head for the station. From there we turned south, toward Sorrento, Pompeii and Rome.
