October 23, 2013

Tuscany Trip - Part 2 - Pisa

For Part 2 of the Tuscany Trip posts, here's a little bit about visiting the infamous Pisa.

 All I knew about Pisa before visiting was that the famous leaning tower resides there. I was quite pleasantly surprised to find out that right in the same vicinity as the tower, there are several other beautiful medieval buildings to include the city's Duomo (cathedral), Baptistry,  Campo Santo (monumental cemetery), and some palace buildings. Even nicer is the fact that the whole area is framed in by medieval walls and big beautiful green lawns perfect for relaxing. The leaning tower is actually a bell tower of the cathedral!

You can visit all of the buildings or select and choose the ones you want to visit. You can actually go to the top of the leaning tower, but it wasn't cheap ticket, and the line was insane, so we instead opted to check out the Baptistry, Campo Santo, and Duomo at a leisurely pace with a lunch and gelato break between the sites. Quite an enjoyable day and pretty easy to check out all the sites in just a few hours which worked out great for us as a simple day trip activity from where we were staying. 

Another place I can check off the bucket list (not that I really have one, but if I did, Pisa would have been on it). 

Tower of Pisa





Ticket Office for the Piazza medieval sites
Campo Santo (Monumental Cemetery)

PS - As a side note, just before leaving for Tuscany, I took an online photography course and bought a Canon 55mm fixed lens that came just in time for the trip. That is why these posts are heavy on photos, and lighter on the writing. All the pictures below (except this first one that shows me testing out the lens) are taken with that lens. I was practicing shooting in manual and trying to get used to having to move myself instead of refocus my lens in order to capture the shots I wanted.

 

Cooper tries to help us out and grab Lily for photos of them together, but as you can see, Lily is unwilling to comply

Captured Frank smiling, 1 out of 3...

Almost! 2 out of 3...

Both kids at least looking at the camera, but not Frank...
Oh, I love these silly guys
Think he'd had enough 

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