Pisa, Italy

Our first stop in Italy was Pisa. Getting to Pisa from Barcelona was a breeze. Nobody forgot their passports and there were no flight delays. Our flight was with Vueling. Vueling is a budget airline based in Barcelona and for that matter; their customer service was not bad at all. It was a smooth hour and a half trip to Pisa, Italy. As we walked out of the plane and walked towards the Pisa international airport, all I could think was “Are we at the right place?” The airport was very tiny; it reminded me of a county airport in the Delaware. It felt smaller inside and completely DEAD. It was empty and there seemed to be only two baggage claim areas. The only passengers we saw in the airport were the people who came from our flight. After getting our bags and heading to the exit, we realized that there was no immigration/customs stops at the airport. We were so confused! This is not normal; every international airport has to have a customs/immigration area but Nope! We did not see one maybe they were closed for the day or on their siesta break. Lol we were only going to be in Pisa for a few hours then head to Florence via train. Our agenda in Pisa was to see the renowned leaning tower, the only attraction in that city. We were told the best and cheapest way to get to the leaning tower was to take a bus from the airport to Pisa central train station then another bus to the tower or walk there. We purchased our bus tickets after exchanging some dollars. The exchange rate was ridiculous. I would advise anyone to exchange money at their bank before going on an international because we were ripped off; we got 40 Euros for $100. After what seemed like an hour of waiting, the bus to Pisa central finally arrived. We struggled but were able to get all 4 of our luggage on the bus with no issues. The bus driver did not even acknowledge us nor did he care if we had a bus ticket so we sat down and enjoyed the 30 minute ride to the train station. Before embarking to see the tower, we decided to check out travel times to Florence for the rest of the day and also wanted to put our luggage in storage for a few hours while touring Pisa. The storage attendant was a “no nonsense” heavy set Italian man. He did not look like he wanted to be bothered when we approached his “locker room” as he gave us a very unpleasant look that pretty much meant, what do these immigrants want?” He immediately said, “5 Euros each bag!” in his thick Italian accent. We had two large luggages, two carry on and two large purses. We wanted to at least store all four luggages but at 5 Euros each which converts to almost $10 each, we were not having it. Chloe attempted to turn on her charm in efforts to make a deal with the man to store all the bags for half of the price but the man responded to her attempt with, “5 Euros each bag!”. The man was not amused and wanted us to get out of his face if we were not willing to pay for full price. We then decided to store the large bags and drag along our purses and carry ons on our tour.

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Now time to head to the leaning tower, but confused as to how to get there. We stood by the fountain in front of the central station contemplating on asking someone for help or a sign from God. We then heard a familiar language (our sign from God); it was a Nigerian man speaking Pidgin English on his cell phone very loudly. Chloe and I smiled to each other signaling that we were going to ask him how to get to the tower. He was very nice and gave us walking directions to the leaning tower in his very thick Nigerian accent. He told us it was a 20 minute walk however we learned quickly that it was a lie. This man whom I cannot remember his name, walked with us to the tower as he talked our heads off about how the African refugees came to be in Italy and their living environment. We were hungry, exhausted and annoyed at how far we had to walk to see the tower needless to say that this man’s stories were not helping. After what felt like 45 minutes of walking, we were finally approaching the leaning tower or should I say the tiny slim building. It was very underwhelming to say the least. It was about 183 feet tall and barely leaning. It was smaller than the Eiffel tower, the statue of liberty and the big Ben. We were very disappointed! After a couple of pictures, we were over it and annoyed that we walked all this way to witness this disillusionment. This attraction is not worth visiting. As a matter of fact, Pisa is not worth visiting, do not waste your time like we did.

We were ready to go. We definitely were exhausted and did not want to walk back so we decided to take the bus. We hoped on the first bus that arrived with no tickets in hand, we hoped that the driver does not ask for one and if he did we were going to give him our tickets from earlier that day. We arrived at Pisa central without any issues on our free bus ride. We were starving and wanted something to eat before our train to Florence. We walked around and could not find anything appetizing to eat so we headed into the station and got our bags before the storage closed at 7pm. We then opted to eat at McDonalds located in the train station for dinner. We often do not eat fast food but when in doubt, go with familiar food so we did! Oh I will never forget being charged to use the bathroom at the McDonalds. Either you had a receipt or you had to pay 1 euro just to use the bathroom. Where they do that at? Come to find out, all the bathrooms in the train station charged 1 Euro to use. I was over Pisa and ready to go to Florence. We were on the last train to Florence.

#Italy #Europe