The most unusual tourist attraction

The last two days (but one) we found the most unusual of tourist attractions…
The attraction starts in the car park, this is real-time, in your face tourism. Men from southern shores wander around with relics from their homeland mixed with unusual domed shapes, colourful, collapsible technological marvels.
You make your way past them, some appear as statues, others are moving and through a lovely arched portal.
Once through the portal you encounter the real target of this attraction, a zoo with people spanning the globe, standing on an angle with their hands in the air, tracing the same angle. At first glance they appear to all bit at different angles, but, watching carefully you realise they actually are all leaning on the same angle, as if drawn by some powerful magnetic force. They stand still, very still for a matter of seconds and then relax. Sometimes they resume the same, or a similar posture a few times in a row.
Looking past the people you notice a building, not a large building, but a pretty building and it too is on the same angle. Is it the people that are slowing drawing the building down, or are they some how worshiping the building as a God, it is not clear to the innocent bystander.


And so is the experience of Pisa… well not really, but very odd behaviour indeed and certainly kept one amused for some time. Of course Cathedral square with the basilica and the Cathedral, the tower leaning in behind from the cathedral as if it were a shy child standing behind it’s parents, just taking a peak at the goings on, are all amazing. The Cathedral has some fantastic mosaics, paintings and wood inlays. The basilica is strangely empty, except for some theatre costumes on display and an artwork made up of loaves of bread and a wooden cross.


The town of Pisa has some lovely streets and a market from which we bought vegetables. We managed to find a famous (well Lonely Planet famous) gellatatria, however it was closed, and so we chose an alternative. The chocolate ice cream that Becca chose was truly fantastic.
And thus was Pisa and we move on to the wilderness of Tuscany, following one of our campsite books led us about 30k north of Florence. The campsite was quite nice up in the hills, the people very friendly, but the true delight, the justification for the long drive through the windy hills was the pork… When we arrived the owner asked us if we wished to eat in the restaurant, normally we wouldn’t but she took me out the back to the kitchen and opened the oven to reveal what smelled and looked like the sweetest, crispiest roasted pork imaginable. Rach and I both ordered it (Bex and Tash stuck with pizza, really very nice) and it was heaven. The pork was a rolled loin jammed with various herbs and kidney. The skin was the crispiest, sweetest crackling imaginable and the whole experience was a true delight.

Today we drove through and stopped in a few towns on the way back down to Florence. The two highlights, some delicious cheese from a market picorhino (spelling) and in another village there was band playing to which the girls danced on the streets (although we never saw the band, they were squirreled away in a villa).


As drove through to Florence on the backgrounds we caught glimpses of wooded valleys in all shades of autumn colours, drove through tree tunnels with the sun lighting up the autumn leaves like a coloured glass chandelier. At the top of the hill, coming down to Florene were feasted on a spectactular view of the city of Florence, bathed in the sunshine, the domes sparkling and the surrounding hills showing off their villas, olives and vines.


Tonight we are in a campsite on the grounds of what is described as the most beautiful youth hostel in Europe. An L-shaped villa with lovely grounds. Tomorrow we are Florence bound.