Annette was in a happier mood today and had stopped sulking, just as well as we would be stuck on a coach for about 80 minutes on the run to Pisa. We could see from the deck that this was still an Italian navy port and there appeared to be destroyers or maybe large frigates in the harbour. The harbour itself is not on the large size and transfer to shore was to be via a lifeboat launch as we were at anchor in the deeper water. It may have been the transfer in the smaller boat that cheered Annette up but, either way we had cleared the air.

I had never been to Pisa before and was expecting to be disappointed, after all it is a very iconic tower and I had seen countless pictures of it. Nevertheless, the journey was interesting in it’s own right as we passed a marble mountain that had quite literary been mined since Roman times or earlier and was a scared white that I suppose will eventually be  cut flat and disappear from the landscape. There were large stocks of quarried blocks in large stockyards all along the route. All in all it managed to keep me awake all the way there.

The coach park is naturally quite a way from the square with the tower so they had a ‘road train’ sort of thing they have going round the larger zoos in UK, to take us down to the main attraction. As an aside, there were dozens of these tourist trains all over the places we visited and they all sported German built tractor units.  as we got off the coach the guide warned us not to buy any fake goods off the dodgy salesmen that lurked anywhere there were tourists. The EU in it’s infinite wisdom has decided the crime is not selling the forged goods but, rather the buying of it and therefore, should the police see you buy any or see you carrying any bogus designer gear, you would be fined €500! What a cock eyed way of fighting crime.

We had  traveled through some cloudy weather so much so that Annette was tempted enough to buy a touristy umbrella covered in images of the tower in Pisa, but by the time the little choo-choo had pulled up at the square we were in bright sunshine again. First impressions were favourable and everything looked brilliantly white and clean. So much so I am pretty sure it was funded by euro taxes but, that didn’t stop me having a mental image of dozens of black clad grandmothers with buckets and scrubbing brushes toiling well into the night.   The official name is the Miracle Square and I can understand why.
The tour guide did spout on about somebody describing the place as the most perfect European square but, she had such a heavy accent I could rarely understand what she was on about. I did work out that apart from the tower there was also a cathedral and another churchy building which was a ‘baptistry’ as they wouldn’t let anyone into the cathedral who had not been baptised though heaven only knows how they could tell who had or who hadn’t.

The one failing of this and every other trip we went on was the lack of time. Clearly there were so many tourists there even with the two hour wait before the return journey we would not be able to get anywhere near the front of the queues  to get inside anywhere, which was a shame as you were allowed to climb the tower and the cathedral looked pretty impressive.  Nevertheless, there was plenty to see and we even had a small souvenir market to nose around.  There was an impressive looking cemetery too but, that was all locked up with a gate that would likely have kept King Kong out.  To sum up it was worth the while going, but i would have loved to climb the tower.There were people all over the place posing for the holding the tower  up photo so I refused to pose for Annette, mind you the way she has taken other posed pictures in the past it wouldn’t have made any sense anyway.

On the way back to La Spezia we passed another fine looking church near the centre of Pisa town proper and the guide told us it was the Church of the Thorn as it housed a thorn taken from Christ’s crown of thorns. A new take, I guess on pieces of the original cross, which considering the number of pieces doing the rounds must have been big enough to hold King Kong (see previous link).

Before going back on board we had a nose around the town and were pleased to find reasonably priced beer and wine, so we stocked up on cabin supplies, but this was the last time we bothered until we got to Majorca as the drink prices were, overall, very good value on board and much cooler.  There was something of a sameness about all the Mediterranean towns and we could at any time been in any one of a thousand and not noticed much difference in styles and layout. Could not quite make out the link but, there was a big statue of Guiseppe Garibaldi in the town, so I’m assuming he either led the unification of Italy there or set up a biscuit factory, he, he.

The journey back was a little more exciting as there was a small swell and when we docked the lifeboat rose and fell about two feet so you had to time the step off unless you wanted a large step up or down.
We had yet more food then wandered off to the on board quiz and I won the magnificent prize of a souvenir Cruise Parker Pen, and this after forgetting the name of the Treaty of Versailles! I did redeem myself though by being the only person to know the length of the World’s shortest war; the 38 minute Anglo-Zanzibar War 1896  .  Annette complimented my knowledge by knowing some boy band questions.

By now it was time to set off out onto our next port of call, Nice, and I managed to get Annette from the stern to the bow to watch them lifting the anchor. I have never seen them raising an anchor on a large ship and even I found it interesting as a mix of technical excellence and amateurism. There were a crew of about six, two to each of the three automatic capstans demonstrating some nifty knot making to boot and the officer in charge provided the amateur touch by literary leaning over the side of the ship and giving a series of hand signals until such time as he was happy with the position. this took him some time and the anchor was raised and lowered several times before he was happy. At one point  he was leaning so far over I felt sure he would end up in the drink, but he was obviously used to the precarious positions and eventually all was tied up to his satisfaction and off we went.

Rest of the night was spent in more entertainment , feeding and drinking. Note to everyone; if there is an American idiot form Las Vegas playing the piano in the pub bar, take ear plugs. His piano playing was good but, his singing was almost as poor as mine but, he thought he was brilliant and he had a knack of making every song sound the same. Fortunately, the rest of the entertainment was much better and we were free to walk away.