Today we headed into the countryside to a hunting lodge that used to belong to the Medici family. It’s now a getaway hotel and restaurant among beautiful trees and rolling hills (they sure knew how to live). When we got there we were greeted by Chef Alessio, he invited us into his restaurant and let us help him make our lunch – a vegetable salad, tagliatelle pasta with pesto sauce and tiramisu for dessert.
After lunch we took a bus ride, then a cute little train to visit Piza. We met an interesting and entertaining man named Roberto who showed us around the big cathedral and baptistery chapel (did you know back in the Middle Ages you couldn’t go in a church until you were baptized, that’s why they had to have a separate place for baptisms). These two buildings, built between 1063 and 1092, as well as the Campanile, or tower, are the oldest buildings in Piza’s walled city, and all constructed of marble. Even though they’re that old the marble makes them look brand new (except for the design, of course).
The Campanile, which means free standing bell tower (we know it as the Leaning Tower of Piza) is the highlight of our visit. Roberto told us a bit about its history. Did you know it’s currently leaning 4 degrees because it was built on ground that’s not very solid. The construction was originally stopped when they saw it was starting to lean but continued on about 200 years later and finished to what we see now. It’s total weight it 16,000 tons. In recent years remedial work was done to stabilize the tower (it used to lean 5.5 degrees), hopefully it will hold up. Here’s let’s help a bit – I’ll hold on and you push it up.
As we headed back to Firenze we decided to take a bit of a longer route and go to the top of the hill for a view of all of Firenze. What an amazing view, we can see for miles, and spot all the big towers and churches we saw on our walk about town.
Well Behaved Kids Travel 