Spoonful of Sugar: June 2016

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته and good day!

I just realised I've had this in draft for so long. hahaha... Sorry peeps. Here you go.

After all the hustle and sight-seeings in Florence, we were off to Pisa.

Taking the train in Italy is slightly different than in UK. The tickets is quite big, and you need to validate the tickets on a machine at the platform before you board or you'll be fined. Being noob as we are, we didn't know until the announcer told us, which was literally a minute before the train departs. We asked other passenger, and when we found out we needed to get off the train, I volunteered to run. Luckily, I saw an attendant on board and went to him instead. He told me to get back on the train and validated the tickets for us. Phew~~~

The train ride to Pisa was smooth as a sailor. We stopped at Pisa Centrale. From there, we needed to take a bus to go to the leaning tower. I don't remember which bus though, you need to google it.

It didn't take long to go to the leaning tower from the train station. Roughly around 10 minutes. We placed our bags at a luggage hold at the station. The rate was quite expensive for me. maybe because compared to Rome and Amsterdam, Italy is quite pricey. They charge per luggage, and there's no holding for short period of time. Only 12 and 24 hours are available.

When we arrive at the leaning tower, there weren't many people there since it was still very early in the morning.

There's three things located together with the leaning tower. The first one is this, the baptistery.

Then the cathedral.

and last..the main attraction...the leaning tower.

We bought tickets to go up the tower in advance (when we were in Florence). The tickets costs €23.66...I think..haha...most of the info from this trip I've forgotten already. =P

Anywho...we went to the ticket counter to validate the tickets we bought, there's a locker service here (if we knew, we would've brought along our luggage. It's free too! You need to put all your belongings in the locker. You're only allowed a camera, a phone, or any other hand held devices. There's a security check at the entrance of the tower. They will even wand you.

The tower consists of 300 steps!!

The tower itself is made out of sparkling white marble and stone. Even the steps. So you can see the indented part where people has been stepping on it for more than 200 years!!

Yo can feel the tower lean as you go up.

Not even close to the top yet

Running out of breath

Finally made it!!!

I don't know what is it with Italy and climbing buildings. haha...It seems that is all we've been doing since we've got here.

The leaning tower is also called as the bell tower for the cathedral. Hence, the many bells on top.

The bell will rang every hour. It rang when we were up there, luckily I wasn't really that close to it. But it still made me jump.

After we went down, we wanted to take some iconic shots with the tower before the area gets crowded.

My bestie couldn't get a good picture of me. This was the 100th time we tried, hence the facial expression.

After that, we wanted to go inside the cathedral, but hasn't been opened yet.

So we decided to go to the building next to it.

This building is actually a cemetery. Don't believe me? See it for yourself.

It's called Camposanto which means holy field. It also refers to as monumental cemetery. These are actual graves of actual people. Since a very long time ago. They even have a display of coffins that were used in the old days. Maybe the body inside already decayed and nothing was left. But still...ugh..

There's even new arrivals being buried here. This one was recently added on 2009. The only grave with flowers on them. Must be someone important.

The middle was an open plan with an empty grass area.

After feeling gloomy from all the dead people, we went to the baptistery. This is the largest baptistry in Italy.

While we were busy taking pictures, suddenly the guard kept shooshing the touring group of kids and other people who were making noises inside the baptistery. At first I thought it was just to remind them that this is a place of worship and certain conduct needs to be addressed.

Suddenly we heard this sound (from the video). It turned out, they have a calling for prayer too. We didn't know at first, but we asked the guard afterwards and he told us (with the limited english that we understood from him) that the call was to tell people of midday and for prayer.

However, I didn't find more information about this in the net. Maybe any christian orthodox that read this can tell us more.

And now to the cathedral.

This is the prayer hall inside the cathedral. The rope is to close that part from visitors and only be open during mass. While we were in there, there's this one tour group that's always near us, so we get the chance to have some additional info.

The guide said this cathedral have a lot of Ottoman empire influence in its architectural design. See the pillars? You can see the same design in Mezquita in Cordoba too (I haven't written a post about it yet...huhu).

Well, while we're here, might as well take more pictures with the leaning tower. Who cares how ridiculous you'll look.

Join in the fun like these people. hahahaha...it's fun just watching them.

The last part that we went to is the museum. Let me just tell you upfront, it's boring. LOL

We watched the 3D virtual tour of the museums and buildings here.

Most of them are ruins of paintings and sculptures that they find.

More pictures of the leaning tower before we left.

The Tuscany alley. Couldn't get enough of it.

After Pisa, we were off to Rome, our last destination of the trip. We already bought the bus tickets earlier on. However, the bus that we need to take is not that near to the attractions. It's a 15 minutes bus ride.

The place where we need to wait for our bus is a parking lot and used to be a resting stop with a lot of stores. However, they are no longer in business, kind of like an abandoned cowboy town. Then there's this shuttle train-bus to take tourists that parked their car here to the Leaning Tower. We waited for 2 hours for our bus because we arrived too early.