Today we went to Pisa.  On the way we saw rice fields, the region famous for Asti Spumanti (a favorite from our younger days), Campari and Nutella.

On the way we saw Genova.  Its claim to fame is Green Pesto and is also very famous for stone cutting and even though the marble mines will run out, some time, there will always be an industry cutting stone. It also had lots of tunnels and bridges with very steep mountains. Also we saw the Marble Mountains. We thought it was snow on the mountains however the mountains are made of marble.  These are the mountains that Michelangelo came to pick his marble blocks to carve except the block he used to carve David; it was given to him.  There is only 100 years of marble left in the mountains and they only pay 5 Euro per tonne tax to mine it.

This is not snow, it is marble aptly called the Marble Mountains

Pisa was all that was expected. A little bit of information was that the tower was leaning when it was being built.  It was simply built too high for the soft soil foundations that is was built on. If you look at the structure about five floors up they tried to straighten the structure; they failed.  The whole area was once a swamp and the soil is very soft, hence the problem. The tower was closed in 1990 and a committee was formed to solve the problem of the leaning tower. A number of solutions were tried. They have poured lead around the base of the tower opposite the lean (600 tonnes).  It is holding the tower at the moment however they are concerned that the pressure halfway way up the tower on the inside may be too much and it may explode like a similar tower did in 1989.  They now have a monitoring system in place and you can climb the tower but we didn’t take that option up.

Everything has a lean to it including my head

Even the sculpture had a lean, joking it is a sculpture of the fallen angel

We then traveled to Florence, Firenze or flower and arrived late and went to a 600 year old castle.  It really did need heating.  They have heated one room and it cost 40,000 Euros; the other rooms are on hold. Although it was a quick meal it was traditional home cooking done by the owner’s aunt.  We had spelt soup, tomato and bread sauce, pasta with vegetables and cheese, roast pork, homemade salami with fennel and peppercorns, cheeses, olive tapenade with tomatoes on crusty bread, biscotti with desert wine all washed down with lots of their own wine. We also had saffron flavoured jelly on pecorino cheese.  The saffron is grown on the estate and last year they harvested half a kilo (50,000 Euro)  It is the only privately owned castle in Italy.  It had a room called the conspiracy room.  It this room the owner plotted to over throw the Merdici Family.  Sadly for him, he failed and he was exiled to the castle and if the castle hadn’t been designed by a very famous architect the castle would have been destroyed.

Alberto, our host, cousin of the owner, Dud in the cellar, the courtyard and the courtyard.

We had great home cooked food tonight, with wine, and we were looking forward to our bed in Florence.