All good things have to come to an end and this morning we had to pack and tidy up the apartment before we left in the morning. We asked Simon to order us all taxis to Florence train station and Florence airport as Sophie, David and Isabelle were flying back home and the rest of us were heading to Pisa - mainly because British Airways had cancelled out return flight some time ago and I had had to book a return on Saturday instead!
What we hadn’t realised was that the storm that nearly drowned us last night was actually very serious. Several people had been killed and there was mass flooding across the region. The knock on effect of this was that most trains were cancelled or very delayed. There would have been frequent trains to Pisa - almost 2 an hour but in the event we could not find one or any information. Whilst waiting Hester and I ran off and managed to find four disgustingly bright mini statuettes of David in a shopping centre under the station. Eventually I worked out that if there were any trains they would be going would be from platform almost away from the station. There was a train about to depart so I managed to run back and get everyone, grabbed as many bags as I could carry and made everyone run flat out… the buzzers were sounding for the doors to close so I pushed everyone on and we were well and truly wedged in. Hester and I had to stand for the entire journey but we did make it to Pisa and to be honest, I am not sure what would have happened if we had not.
We took a taxi - well we did - Hester and Brian apparently ended up walking as the wait was too long to our B&B that I had managed to eventually book as rooms became free. It is very nice with complimentary hot drinks and cakes which Ian enjoyed. After a brief sit down we found the energy to get up and go and meet Hester and Brian to finally visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It really is leaning. It took quite some time for us all to take the obligatory ‘holding up the tower shots’. It was nice to be able to just walk around the grounds without paying to go in.
After stocking up on some snacks in a nearby Carrefour we all headed back to our respective B&Bs before mustering a couple of hours later at a restaurant (in the rain) that I had managed to book over the phone a little earlier. We were a bit early so we all returned to see the tower at night which was just as impressive. The meal was excellent, really traditional and I went ahead and ordered tow bottles of wine straight off! Eventually we finished (and after admiring the amazing toilets…), we walked back to the B&B’s and finally collapsed in a crumpled heap - what a day.
