I got a ridiculously cheap flight from Malta to Italy, and
so I was making my way into a country I had intended to avoid on this trip.
Italy is the sort of place I always imagined doing comprehensively when I’m
older, when I don’t have the energy or the enthusiasm for the more obscure and
difficult places, and when I have the money to do it properly. But when
opportunity arises in the form of dirt cheap flights, the journey can change,
and suddenly I’m staring at the Tower of Pisa thinking ‘Holy shit that thing is
on a lean.’
Things didn’t start off so well. When I arrived into the
country I waited in the dark outside the B&B I booked for forty minutes,
ringing the buzzer continuously. It was only when I had given up and decided to
walk around and see what other accommodation I could find (an absolute no no in
any other country this late at night), that a police car passed and I waved it
down. They called the owner for me and I eventually got into a room. This is
the sort of shit you have to go through when you can’t afford the Hilton.
Pisa was my base for my short stay in Italy. Obviously, the
leaning tower is the key attraction here, and my expectations were pretty low
which is why I was pleasantly surprised when I came from around a corner in a
seemingly ordinary quite town to see this tower looking like it was about to
topple over. The photo’s I’ve seen of it, and the photos I took, really fail to
capture the lean.
The tower is in a complex of grand old buildings which are
equally impressive – they just don’t have the novelty factor of looking so
unstable.
It’s one of the world’s most recognisable tourist
attractions, in one of the world’s most touristic regions (that being Tuscany),
in one of the world’s most touristic countries. But the town of Pisa itself is
a university town with a river running through it and is unique in that it has
so many visitors but most only stay an hour or two to take a photo of the tower
and then get back into the coach, so it isn’t completely dependent on tourism. There
is a lot of real life here as well.
From Pisa I used Italy’s efficient train network to explore
the region with my friend Carol who I had met up with once again. Florence was
only an hour away and was great to see. It’s a small city and has nice
streetscapes and a river. A key attraction is the Duomo, an enormous cathedral
in the centre of town with unique décor. But the highlight in Florence for me
was the Pizza and wine I had for a long lunch in a cosy cafe as we waited for
the rain outside to ease.
The leaning tower exceeded my expectations and so did
authentic Italian pizza (just wish I could have got to naples).
On a sidenote, I asked a young Italian couple what were the
best and worst things about Italy. They said the food and the mafia,
respectively.
The small town of Lucca in the heart of Tuscany was my
favourite. The town is situated within ancient defence walls and is quite
quaint. It was nice to walk around and see churches and Alfa Romeos and narrow
streets and architecture and old women riding bicycles on cobblestone roads.
We ended one day by exploring Livorno, a more working class
town on the sea. Here there are canals which give one particular area of the
town the name ‘New Venice.’ In this town I emptied my 2L bottle of water into a
pot plant and went into a cellar and from the huge vat a man poured me 2L of
red wine and charged me 2.5 Euro. Carol and I had a great evening sitting above
a canal and watching the dusk wash over the sky behind it. 
I visited a great local market in a town called La Spezia
where there were hams and sausages and blocks of cheese and tubs of pesto for
sale. From there I went to a smaller town right on the water’s edge, which was
so rustic and so genuinely ‘traditional’ that it looked almost fake, like a
movie set. It made me understand that people
come to Italy because it’s just plain nice. It’s pleasant, like a painting of a
sunny day.
From Pisa it was great to be able to see the highlights of
the Tuscany region, something I couldn’t have done with such ease in most other
countries I’ve visited on this trip. Because this country has its shit so
together, it allowed me to make the most of my limited time.
I’ve always been a little intense about the ethos of travel,
in fairness to one’s self and the place being visited. And there I was, passing
Italy in the blink of an eye. What a hypocrite! So what do I have to say for
myself?
Firstly, the way the flight deal worked out I more or less chose
to go to Italy on a whim.
But in a more metaphorical way, this is how I will justify my
stay:
Italy is a big pizza and I had one very thin slice. That
slice wasn’t very filling, but I got a dam good taste of most of the ingredients.
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