Lucca and Pisa

I’m starting with a picture; guess where we are?

You guessed it – Leaning Tower of Pisa!!

We arrived in Livorno this morning and we had booked a ship excursion taking us to Lucca and Pisa.  We both really wanted to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and this was a half day excursion, so felt it was worth taking.  Truly it was breathtaking. Here are more pictures of this area:

These are the buildings you see when you walk into the area; the round building is the “Baptismal” where babies/people are baptized and at the very top of the building is John, The Baptist; the building behind  that is the Cathedral and behind that is the leaning tower of Pisa. 

This is inside the Baptismal building with the statute of John the Baptist.

 

When taking pictures, it was hard to show the “lean” so I took a close up of the bottom as you can see the “lean” better there. 

We also visited the city of Lucca which is a city surrounded by a wall dating back to the early 16th century.  They started constructing the wall in the mid 1500’s and finished it in 1654.  This village is renown for keeping it as a Medieval Village to this day.  They are quite strict who can live there, if you are not born there, you cannot live in Lucca.  They used to keep all people out that were not from the village but in recent years have opened it up to tourists – obviously for financial reasons (in our opinion).  Nevertheless, it is a very quaint village and the tour was very interesting.

The entrance to Lucca

The wall that completely surrounds Lucca. There is no vegetation close to the wall as it was all removed when originally built to keep the enemy out and they have kept it that way to this day. 

The cathedral within Lucca. 

Other points of interest in Lucca.

So tomorrow is the “big day” when we arrive in Civitavecchia which is the port closest to Rome.  We are doing Rome “on our own” with the information I researched before we left for the trip.  We are taking the train from Civitavecchia to Rome which is about an hour away.  I’m praying that we do not get lost and that we find our way back to Civitavecchia on the train.  Our plan is to see what we can of Rome in a few hours.  I know there is a lot to see, so hopefully we can put a small dent in to some interesting places!