Tuscany on crack

Today was my day of putting a check mark on the places I went to. I never intended to do anything at any of the places - just see them as quickly as posible because I had to check into my hostel in Cinque Terra before 6PM. The places I went to were ones that I was told that there really wasn't anything to do there, just to walk around and take some pictuers is enough. So my day started with a 530AM train to Sienna.Sienna is a very Gothic city. I walked around at a stupidly fast rate and managed to see the popular sites. Personally, I didn't like the city. You probably will say thats because I did it at 730AM on a Saturday and beacuse of that htere were no people, or that I walked it in an hour and did not actually stop to appreciate it. However, I simply did not like the dark gothic architecture. Aside from all the major sites in the city I saw a sign for the Sinagoga Ebraica - the Jewish synagogue. I followed the sings and boy was it difficult ot find. Aside from a placque in Italian with 2 lines of Hebrew there were no other indications of a synagogue or Jewish building of any kind. The building was not a stand alone and it was connected to other appartment buildings (I think). I managed ot catch an earlier train out of Sienna by half an hour and headed to my next destination - Pisa with a train transfer back in Florence.

Once off the train in Pisa I had enough time to slow my pace down to a brisk walk. The streets were narrow and every building a different colour. It kinda felt like Florence with fewer tourists. I got to the leaning tower and it was really leaning! I took a bunch of pictures and walked around the area as there was a huge cathedral next to the tower. I bumped into 2 other Canadians from Calgary who happen to also be engineers - one of them a civil and he was able to give me an explanation of why its leaning and hasn't fallen over. It was built on crappy soil and it started to sink. The construction was interrupted due to a bunch of wars. The tower continues to sink but over time its rate of sinking slowed down. Once the construction continued the addional weight of the tower only had a minimal effect on the amount of sinking that could continue. I got back to the train having checked off Pisa and was off to Lucca.

The reason for going to Pisa

Lucca is a city enclosed in a 12 meter high wall. There is a paved road along the wall where you can walk, jug, bike, collerblade, etc. around it and get great views of the city wintin and the greenery in the distance. The train schedule provided me with one houra nd 10 minutes in Lucca. However if I could knock it down to an hour my next train ride would be 40 minutes shorter. So off I went, without time to physically stop to take a picture I powered through the walk around half the city then I had to cut through the city streets to get back to the train in time. I was cutting it REALLY close. I bet your wondering how close is REALLY close. Well it means that after a non stop power walk with my 12kg bag I had about a 400 meter sprint into the terminal, run to the ticket desk straight to the front of the line and ask in a panting voice which platform I needed. I ran to the platform just as the train doors were opening. Later I bumpued into other people whohad been to Lucca and they said that the second half of the city was much like the first half (no surprise there), therefore I wasn't terribly upset that I only saw half of it. It was however a very nice town and I was glad I stopped there.

I ended up in Cinque Terra at about 430PM which was earlier than I had anticipated. If your doing the math, ya I was just in 5 cities in 11 hours, having toured 3 of them. In hindsight with that extra time I would have liked ot have spent more time in Pisa just wandering around. I also would have completely avoided Sienna and spent the day split between Pisa and Lucca.

After an intense day of running around with my backpack, I ditched it in my room and began exploring the villiage of Riomaggiore - one of the 5 villages in Cinque Terra. I'm not sure which was worse - running around all day with a 12kg back on my back or now climbing the stairs around the village after running around all day. I ended up getting a descent night's sleep before my big hike the next day. The minimal stair climbing I experienced was just a tiny taste of what was in store for me tomorrow.

The village of Riomaggiore