Stephan and Suhad's European Backpacking Trip September 98

Day Nine, Pisa/La Spezia

We had read about a highly recommended region to visit in Italy called Cinque Terre in both Rick Steves as well as in our Lonely Planet book. It is a scenic region along the coast of the Ligurian Sea that is composed of five villages that are literally hanging off the mountains. We decided to visit the region and our plan was to visit the area, but stay in the cheaper city of La Spezia.

So, we left Firenze and headed towards La Spezia via train. Unfortunately, it was a slow train...one of the problems about taking local trains. But we eventually got to Pisa Centrale, where we should have disembarked. However, I stupidly thought that we were supposed to stay on the train because our schedule said that the train we were on was supposed to go on towards La Spezia. We found out in the next town, Livorno, that the train only occurs on the weekends. Luckily, we only had to wait 15 minutes before the next train took us back to Pisa.

We only wanted to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa and so at the train station we got a 2 hour bus pass. When we got near the Tower, we walked the rest of the way. The Tower was fenced off by chain-link fencing so that you couldn't get very close. There were several cranes around it also. You could see the 600 tons of lead weight that were placed on the opposite side of the lean to straighten the tower. Apparently it worked for several years before the straightening reversed in one night. Since then the Italian government has come up with several different schemes to save the Tower, but none of which has so far worked yet.

We headed back to the train to continue our trip to La Spezia. By the time we got there and started to look for a hotel, the sky turned ominous with dark clouds. Rather than risk getting drenched looking for a place to stay, we picked a hotel near the train station. It was cheap and it took credit cards. By the time we got settled, it was dark and raining. So, we decided to postpone our trip to Cinque Terre and head there in the morning.

That night we went out to dinner at a local family-owned pizzeria that made their pizzas by hand and baked them in a wood stoked oven. Pretty neat to watch. We hoped the weather would be better the next morning.