Our travel book for Italy, written by the people from the infamous "F" of travel guides (who shall remain nameless since this is not a plug for their company, and this blog is not making me any money so I can't afford a slander suit) only devoted 2pages to the city of Pisa, and one of the pages is a picture of the Tower. I'm guessing that anyone visiting Pisa would be familiar enough with the Tower, and not require a picture for identification purposes. So, we tossed the book aside and followed "the people."
Sure enough, the people were heading to a place with a sign that held one of my favorite Italian words, "Informacion." I was able to use my vast knowledge of Italian to ask, "Parla Inglese?" "Do you speak English?" And would you know it? The person in the information booth did! Bonus!
We bought our combo pass entrance tickets, and set off to check out the Baptista. With the late hour and having had little (the guys) to no (me) sleep the night before, we decided to just do one building that night and tackle the rest the next day.
The Baptista was a beautiful building. It held the pulpit of all pulpits. The thing had a carving on it that took 5 years to create. We climbed the steps to the second floor and were able to look out over parts of Pisa. Even the boys were entertained by the different sculptures and gargoyles that adorned the building.
Tired and hungry, we strolled to a nearby outdoor restaurant. After sitting for about five minutes and getting no service, we ventured to another restaurant down the street. This would be our FIRST real Italian meal. The menu was in English, so we didn't have to do too much guessing. Although I am all for trying new things, it was hot, and I decided that a light salad would be better than a heavy Italian dinner. I was a little confused by the menu, as it said the salad was served on rice. This was new to me, but I thought, when in Rome...or...when in Pisa. Maybe that's just how they do things here. But when the waiter took my order he asked if I would rather it be served on salad. His words, not mine. I said, "Yes, I would like my salad on salad." Next time, I'm ordering pizza.
Our bellies filled, we headed back towards our hotel stopping for gelato. Let me just say this, if you take the smoothest, most flavorful ice cream ever, and made it even more smooth and flavorful, you would have gelato. It is so rich and creamy, that a small scoop is all you need. A little lesson I learned about gelato - if you want to make sure that you are buying gelato from a place that makes it fresh, the pistachio will be a greyish color, and not green. If you can get past the grey, it's really tastey.
Ciao' for now!
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