Thursday: July 10
Florence / Pisa, A Day Spent Apart
This has been an interesting morning so far. Our tours are
leaving relatively late, so we had a lazy morning. We set the alarm for 7:45,
but I think we were both awake around 6:30 and didn’t sleep much for the past
hour.
Amy went to the cafe for breakfast, but I took advantage of the
extra time to have breakfast in The Restaurant. I ordered two eggs Benedict and
some soft/limp bacon. As usual, I got bacon-flavored potato chips. I’m a
believer that bacon should chew and not crunch.
Halfway through breakfast, the waitress came back, asked me how things
were, and in particular, she asked me about the bacon. I hadn't planned to say
anything, but since she asked so nicely, I told her what I thought of the
bacon. I didn’t want more/new bacon, but I told her that this was hardly soft
or limp. A while later, a guy came out and asked me about the bacon as well, so
I told him also.
After breakfast, Amy was not in the room, so I went
up to the cafe and
joined her there. They announced on the PA that there was a delay with getting
clearance to disembark. Amy got ready and went down to the Atrium to wait (with
apparently half the ship—she said it was a real zoo). In a sense, it was good
that there was a delay, because I suddenly thought of the quiet-vox (the audio
units we use on tours), and I checked and found that Amy hadn’t taken hers. I
quickly called her on the phone, and she was able to come up and get it. If she
had been quicker to leave, or if I had been slower to think of it, I’m not sure
what would have happened. Maybe they have a spare unit on the bus, and maybe
they don’t.
I play Wordle every day, and my streak is more than 200. Since
there is only one puzzle per day, if I blow my streak, I can’t get to this
point again for more than half a year. I got rather stressed this morning, when
I was having trouble with the puzzle. You have six guesses, and I had used four
of them, so I had two left. I thought of two possible words, but I didn’t want
to play them, for fear that I might have missed a third possibility. So I used
a “throw away” word (i.e. one that couldn’t be correct, but which would
hopefully indicate with of the two was or was not the answer) for guess 5. This
was a good thing, because it eliminated both of my possible words! That left
one guess. I got another hint from my “throw away”. I could think of one
plausible word that fit, and one that seemed rather unlikely. I checked again
and again to see if I could find any other plausible words, but I couldn’t.
With great trepidation I played my plausible word. I was greatly relieved that
it was correct and that I hadn’t lost my streak.
Amy is on the bus about to head out to her excursion. I still have
a half hour before I need to leave. I’m up on the Aquavit Terrace, sitting at a
shady table, typing away. I’m finding this a nice place to do my typing.
—
When the bus got to the highway, we made the apparently mandatory
stop at the rest area for a pit stop. I find this rather puzzling. We left the
ship 10-20 minutes ago. Presumably, if people needed to use the toilet, I would
think that they would have done so before leaving (like I did). If so, then
there should be essentially no need for a toilet break 20 minutes later. As
before, I just rested in the bus.
We went to the walled city of Lucca. We got the guided tour of
the city.
There were a number of interesting
sculptures
scattered around. What made them interesting is that they were based
on various math concepts.
Our guide recommended going to the
top of a particular tower, which had trees on top.
Then we had some free time to have lunch and/or shop or
explore.
She recommended a particular restaurant as being good and quick.
A large number of us descended on them immediately. I ordered something like
ravioli with meat sauce and an iced tea. Once I placed the order, I hit the
restroom. I was very surprised when I returned to my table that
my lunch was already there!
Can’t fault them on slow service.
They had an interesting way to handle the bill. When I was
seated, they tucked a bit of paper on the table with presumably my order
number. Then, as I ordered things, it was attached to that bill. At the end, I
took the paper up to the register, my order appeared, and I paid it.
I wanted to check out that tower with the trees (the Torre
Guinigi). I figured it would be easy, I just needed to retrace our steps. I did
this, but after a while things did not look familiar, and I saw no sign of the
tower. I asked a shop keeper, and he pointed back the way I had come. I
retraced my post-lunch steps and got back to the restaurant without any sign of
the tower. Our guide was outside eating her lunch. I asked her, and she gave me
directions. It turns out that my sense of which way I had to go was correct, except
that I had started in exactly the opposite direction than I should have.
As I was walking around, I passed by a guy who was
making a
sand sculpture
in the plaza. The interesting part is that there is no beach or sand
nearby. It looked like he spread out a large towel, dumped a load of damp sand
on it, and proceeded to sculpt it, occasionally spritzing it as it dried out.
I followed the guide’s directions and quickly came in sight of
the tower. I paid 8 euro and proceeded to hike up
something like 240 steps. I
didn’t count them, but I think that was what the guide said. At the top, there
is a small garden with the trees in them, and a small walkway that ran around
the periphery. I did a loop, taking pictures, and then went down the steps,
which was a lot easier than going up. I went back to the restaurant, which was
on one of the main street of shops. I went down the street past the shops and happened to find a
shop that had stuffed animals. The wombat was German, like the other one I got
(they are probably brothers), and I wanted something Italian. They didn’t have
any bears, but did get an interesting chicken.
I had about 10 minutes to kill, so I checked out the
amphitheater. In ancient times, it was a theater, but now it is just a
collection of shops around a
large oval plaza.
I rejoined the group at the specified time, and we marched to the
bus and left for Pisa.
We actually didn’t see any of the city of Pisa, just the area
near the leaning tower. Our guide gave us a little tour and description of the
grounds and then set us free to do what we wanted. It was tempting to try to
climb the tower, but I didn’t want to fight the crowds. I decided instead to
get a ticket (8 euro) for the
baptistery
and
cathedral.
The
baptistery
is
basically a big, hollow oval. Our guide told us that every half hour, they
close the doors and do a “sound check”. I didn’t know what that was, but it
sounded interesting. I went in around 4:15 to 4:20.
I checked out the ground floor, where there is an altar and an
area for baptisms, then I went up some stairs in the wall to the mid-level.
That gave a good view of the cathedral and a bird’s eye view of the baptismal
area. Then I went back down a bit before 4:30. I wasn’t sure what to expect,
but then they (as advertised) closed the doors. Then a young woman walked to
near the center and sort of sang a loud note. There was an echo very shortly
after she started. I would swear that the echo was lower in pitch, but that
isn’t possible. I wonder whether there was a second person, who I couldn’t see,
who was doing the same thing. The interesting part is that when she finished
the note, the sound reverberated for a noticeable duration. I got a video of
it. The video isn’t that interesting, but hopefully the audio is.
When they re-opened the doors, I went out and went into the
cathedral. Apparently, when it was built, it was the largest one in Italy. It
is very tall and rather ornate. One interesting detail is that in the dome over
the altar, it looked like there was a door and a set of stairs. That would be
really scary, as the stairs are really high up and have no railing.
There were a bunch of interesting paintings along the walls, but
I have no idea what most of them were about.
Just before I left, a woman and her daughter came up to me and
pantomimed that they wanted me to take their pictures with their phone. I guess
they chose me because I had a big camera hanging around my neck. I took a bunch
of pictures for them, and I noticed that their camera used Cyrillic. When they
said “thank you,” I wasn’t sure what language to reply with, so I said “prego,”
which I think is Italian for “you’re welcome”. She said that she didn’t speak
Italian (in English), so I replied that neither did I asked, “Russian?” She
gave me a dirty look and said, “No! Ukraine.”
When I finished with the cathedral, I had about 15-20 minutes to
kill, so I did a lap around the baptistery looking for good angles for photos.
I was amazed at the large number of people who were trying to set up the
classic picture of someone holding the tower up or perhaps pushing it over.
That seemed really silly to me, so I didn’t even think about trying to do
something like that.
I joined the group, a minute or two later the guide joined us,
our guide checked off our names, then we hiked to the bus, got on, and headed
back to the ship. At the ship, we had rather a surprise. There was a large
welcome committee of staff, offering us drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic),
and there was a speaker blasting out an Italian opera.
I went up to the room, showered, changed, and then went out on
the Aquavit Terrace to type this up.
—
Amy came in around 8:15. We went down to The Restaurant and got
seated pretty much at the very stern. Shortly after we sat down, the sun set.
Later, we got some good views of the moon rising, but I really needed my SLR to
get a good picture. While we were eating, the ship set sail.
Service was slower than normal, perhaps because it was so late.
The net result is that we didn’t finish until almost 10.
I think it is just bed for us, as we have a long and medium early
day tomorrow.
Good bye to Italy. Now we are on to Monaco, then France, and
finally Spain.
