I am twenty six....

Piazza dei Miraculi

Yup, must be getting old! I spend most of today on the train traveling from Pisa up the Italian and French Riviera to Nice, but I didnt mind a bit. The scenery is just spectacular, the train would plunge into one tunnel or another into total darkness then emerge hugging the coast and giving an amazing view into the clear sea and sometimes even nude sunbathers. Here I have lost the ability to find most punctuation marks on yet another foreign keyboard so you will have to insert them in your mind for me...

Yesterday I walked into Pisa from a dusty, hot ride on the train from Rome and found my room for the night on Piazza Garibaldi. It was next to the best gelato shop in town, well, I think at least by the number of customers and personal testing. I went for a wander and found myself admiring a horse and cart, looking up I found the Leaning Tower!

Horse

There is a funny hippo-beastie leaning out towards the tower

It has a halo of reinforcing steel on one of the lower tiers at the moment but it still looks as elegant and whimsical as it ever did. The Piazza Dei Miracoli or Square of Miracles is definitely breathtaking with a verdant green lawn and the Duomo, Tower and Church all together. I took lots of photos but I dont think I could reproduce the photo of my first visit to Pisa. Lots of tourists were taking pictures tai chi style so that they looked like they were pushing the tower over.

Modern shot

From the 80s, Mum & Dad's album... a few things have changed!

I met the 3 girls in the same room as me, Leigh and Amanda, two Americans from Atlanta and Christina from Vienna. Christina spoke fluent Italian so she helped us confirm that we could get a free dinner if we ordered a drink from the bar downstairs. It was a good introduction to quinoa, which I quite like, it was served with tiny black mussels in the shell. There was also a variety of pasta, pizza and something that looked like spinach quiche. Afterwards we wandered back to the Tower to see it light up and take pictures.

What lean?

This morning, caught the train to Genova, Amanda and Leigh leaving at La Spezia to go to Cinque Terre, and from there another train ride to Nice. Coming to Nice I had a slightly stunted but fun conversation with the woman sitting opposite me, who spoke only French. She was a University lecturer on holiday on the Riviera to enjoy Italian music, from what I could gather. Even though the language we shared was limited, we shared some information about ourselves and she gave me an apple insisting that I eat it, and I shared my potato chips.

Pisa street

Just relaxing between passengers

So, arrived at St Ex hostel where its all quite international. Will probably give in to convenience and eat a simple dinner here. They are playing Sting which is a good sign. Tomorrow, I will check out what is happening, quite keen to go on a daytrip to one of the Riviera towns and to Monaco to see what its about. Now will check out how reasonable it is to stay in Arles and Carcassonne so I can plan my journey to Barcelona. I have a flight back to London from Barcelona booked for the 2nd of July.

Thank you for all the lovely birthday wishes! It really doesnt feel like my birthday at all because it is summer, but it is a great novelty. Love!