Pisa

Today was my most fantastic day in Italy yet! Not only did I get to visit the beautiful city of Pisa, but I finally made it out of the city on my own. The last few daytrips I took out of Florence were with groups, but only because the locations were far away and it was cheaper to go with a bigger group. Normally, I prefer to travel solo, since few people tend to be able to keep up with me and share my level of hyperexcitement or my sometimes overwhelming feeling of glee and giddyness.

A true adventure is one where I get to explore new cities, figure out how to buy tickets and find my own directions, and form my own opinions of the sites I visit, rather than be guided to the places and told what to think about the monuments. Sure, it doesn't take a genius to figure out a ticktet machine and look up a train schedule and get on the right platform to reach a particular destination. Nor is reading a map rocket science, but for me, it is always a thrill to do things on my own.

I never plan a specific itinerary. I just choose a city to visit and in the process of wandering around exploring its important sites, awesome things just happen. That's the kind of trip my friend and classmate Lidia and I went on today.

We had no idea what time or how often the trains to Pisa ran, so when we got to the train station, we just bought the first tickets available - which was great, because the time at which they got us to Pisa was absolutely perfect. It took us about a half an hour of wondering the lovely streets of the city to reach the city center. We didn't have a map or a guide, we just let our sense of "ooo there's something preeetty down the street" guide us. That's hope we ended up on a picturesque bridge and found an old med school.

When we finally got to the famous and historic city center, a gorgeous view of the Tower, the Cathedral, and the Battisero came into view. Each monument was praiseworthy, but despite the Leaning Tower's fame and gravity-defying appeal, I think I was more struck the ancient Romanesque-Gothic Duomo. Gothic architecture happens to be a huge weakness of mine, and the 1000-year-old Pisa Cathedral was particularly impressive. Relatively simple and elegant, but with enough detail to please me, it really complemented the numerous leaning columns of the Tower.

The Tower itself was incredible. While smaller than I had imagined, it did not fail inspire awe. We spent quite a while admiring the wonder, but unlike all the other crowd-following tourists, we did not take any banal "supporting the Tower" pictures. We did, however, make sure to climb up to the top for incredible views of the Cathedral and Battisero and the city.

The most fortunate part of our visit was the accidentally perfect timing. When we got to the information center, the only soonest available tickets to climb the tower were at 7:40pm. We did not expect to stay in the city so late, but we were so lucky we were "forced to." The late tower climb coincided with the sunset, exactly at the time we reached the top.

What a fortunate coincidence! The sunset was stunning and Lidia and I sat atop the tower giggling with joy at the amazingness of our adventure and the beauty our our lives. For some reason, we really enjoyed the Tower's bells.

I don't know if this happens to everyone, and maybe it's due to the fact the Tower is indeed leaning, but climbing its some 300 stairs was incredibly strenuous and even head-spinning. But the slippery, winding marble steps also offered some pretty great photo opportunities.

Staying late in Pisa allowed us to see the Tower glowing at night by the time we climbed down, a totally different, and in some ways even more delightful sight.

Really an unforgettable trip, and I look forward to many others like the one today.