Day 5

Day 5 - leaving Nice, France and headed into Italy. This was the earliest day yet, also the wettest. Our wake up call was at 6:45 am! We were packed and on the bus by 8:30. We followed the coast and began our trek into Italy. About two hours in (and several of us napping along the way), we stopped at an Auto Grille. There we were able to use tree restrooms and buy some shacks for the road. Giuseppe taught us the very important lesson of properly ordering an Italian coffee. The Italians take their coffee very seriously. So seriously that Starbucks market research depeartment decided not to open stores here! Our journey has taken us through the Alps and Oppenhime mountains. I can not even count how many tunnels we have driven through...enough that I gave up reading my magazines. We have passed by Genoa (Genova in Italian) and Caraba, home of the famous marble and its quarries. The marble quarries were difficult to see due to the rain and heavy clouds, but we have a general idea. We stopped at another Auto Grille for lunch. The sandwiches were AMAZING, as was the pizza. The slices were enormous!! Everything seems to be so fresh. The Auto Grille is what we woild call a truck stop. There are some beautiful pastas and beverages that are available for purchase. Some of us bought packets of salami, cheese, olives and crackers. We have discovered Pocket Coffers by the geniuses at Ferrero Rocher. They are little squares of chocolate with a burst of espresso in the middle! DELISH! We arrived in Pisa at 2 and watched as many men came running to our bus to sell us umbrellas. I have never seen such a site! We walked as a group to the tower, dodging both the rain and all of the men who were pushing umbrellas. It was an amazing site as we came around the corner to the Piazza Miracle. The tower seemed to peek around the church in front of us. It was as if we walked into the page of a history textbook. We had a bit of free time before heading into the cathedral and the baptistery. Seeing that the weather was not going to clear up, we walked back to the bus...very wet and chilly. Again the men selling umbrellas tagged along with us. We also saw gypsies throughout the town. Today was a good day to target tourists due to the distraction of the rain. Our hotel is located in Montecatini Terms, not too far from Pisa and Florence (our destination tomorrow). We had time between check in and dinner, which was at the hotel. Some of us took little snoozes, others went out exploring. Dinner was pasta as an appetizer, pork and roasted potatoes and a tirra misu ice cream dessert. This has been our earliest evening in so far. A few of us headed out on search of cappucino and gelato, the rest of us headed to our rooms for an early to bed type of night.