mlchad147
- Jul 3
- 6 min read

July 2, 2024–Florence and Pisa, Italy

Greetings from Carrara, Italy. Maybe you haven’t heard of Carrara. I certainly hadn’t, but it’s the most convenient port for excursions to Florence and Pisa, places we’ve all heard of. And after yesterday’s epic all day excursion in Rome, we decided to follow it up with another big one by visiting both Florence and Pisa in a single day.

This is Tuscany, a region known for the pretty Apennine mountains and the marble that is quarried there. We got to see the mountains up close and personal, as our drive back from Florence to Carrara in the afternoon took us over several high bridges and through three or four tunnels before dropping down into the lowlands near the coast.

The region is also known for the curious stone pines that grow without branches until they spread out all at once near their crest. The locals call them umbrella trees, and they are significant because they are one of the species that contain pine nuts. Do you like pine nuts? Yours may have come from Tuscany. And did you know that Pinocchio means pine nuts in Italian? I’ll include a photo of an umbrella tree below. See how much knowledge I sneak into this blog?

Back to business. We hit the road early this morning and arrived in Pisa at 9:15 am. It took a few minutes to walk from the bus parking lot to the walls surrounding the Tower, the Cathedral, and the Baptistery. Wait, what’s a baptistery? I’m glad you asked, though a few of you may know the answer.

Without going into a lot of church history, baptisteries were places where baptisms were held, and were more common during the period from the late Roman era to the late Middle Ages, when full immersion was standard practice. Baptisteries were sometimes an area within an existing church building, but rich and powerful churches frequently built elaborate structures separate from the church building. That should be enough for the purposes of this blog.

Once again, back to business. Everyone, including us, goes to Pisa to see the Tower, but all three buildings are wonderful. Aside: there’s a fourth great building, the Camposanto Monumentale, but it’s kind of behind the three in the open field (Piazza del Duomo), and we didn’t have time to see it, so I won’t discuss it here. The middle building of the three is the Cathedral, and it is breathtaking, an architectural and aesthetic masterpiece. I hadn’t done my homework, and wasn’t aware that such a magnificent structure, which dates all the way back to 1063, sat next to the Tower. You’ll have to check out my photos below, because I don’t know how else to describe it.

The Tower, which was started in 1173, stands nearby, and as anyone who has seen its photo knows, it’s a separate building from the Cathedral. What many may not know is that the Tower is the Cathedral’s bell tower. During the period of its construction it was common for churches that could afford it to separate the bell tower (which often doubled as a watch tower) from the main church building. Venice did it, and so did Pisa, which was very wealthy at the time. Books have been written about the Tower’s tilt, so I won’t go into it here. What I will say is that it’s every bit as beautiful as it looks in the photos you’ve seen, and even more so.

Then comes the Baptistery, which is on the opposite side of the Cathedral. It’s round, it’s ornate, it’s elegant, it’s the largest in Europe, and together with the Cathedral and Tower, combined to show off Pisa’s power and wealth. All three have been beautifully preserved, and are definitely worth visiting. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to enter any of them because we still wanted to see the highlights of Florence, so we spent the time we had taking photos and admiring them from the outside, before returning to the bus for the ride to Florence.

Florence is an old city, begun in 59 BC, along the banks of the Arno River. Michele and I were here eleven years ago, and I was excited to return and see cathedral again, as well as some other areas of the old city, including the restaurant where we had lunch on our previous visit. Speaking of lunch, that was the first order of business when we arrived, and this time we ate in a lovely restaurant that was part of an old jail. Europe can be like that.

The food was good, and soon we were off on a foot tour of old Florence, beginning with the Basilica di Santa Croce (Holy Cross), which anchors a large square, the Piazza di Santa Croce. In addition to its beauty, the Basilica is significant for the important figures who are buried there, including Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli. There’s a beautiful statue of Dante, who Florence would dearly love to see buried there, just outside the Basilica, and the story of why the native Florentine is buried in Ravenna instead is one you should treat yourself to reading. Trust me, it’s worth it.

As beautiful and intriguing as the Basilica is, it must play second fiddle to Florence’s magnificent cathedral, the Duomo, formally the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flower. Begun in 1296, it took 140 years to complete, and was intended to hold 30,000 worshippers. If Florence is the cultural capital of Italy, the Duomo is its centerpiece. I wish we’d had time to go inside, but even from the outside it is spectacular. Its sheer size, combined with its gothic revival facade, work together to make quite a statement of beauty and power.

Florence wasn’t about to be outdone by Pisa, and the city has its own beautiful baptistery, the Baptistery of Saint John, which gives its name to the square in which it is located, the Piazza San Giovanni. Like many baptisteries, this one is octagonal (don’t ask me why), and it is worth seeing.

We visited quite a few other landmarks, including the Piazza della Repubblica, where there is a large arch, the Palazzo Vecchio, which is the town hall, and the Ponte Vecchio, a medieval stone bridge that is the only bridge across the Arno spared from destruction during World War II. Oh, and one more fact about Florence—this year’s Tour de France started there a few days ago. That’s a big deal in cycling-crazy Europe. But finally, alas, it was time to leave, and after a bus ride of an hour and forty minutes we were back on the ship.

It was yet another great day, but it was our second consecutive long day with a lot of walking in the hot sun. Tomorrow we’re in Portofino, the small, exclusive retreat between here and Genoa, where we’ve scheduled for a shorter, easier day. I’m looking forward to both seeing the famous town and getting a little rest. However it goes, I’ll be back with a full report, so stay tuned.

Many aren’t aware that the area around Pisa’s Cathedral, Tower, and Baptistery is walled. To enter you pass through this arch.

The first thing you come to is the Baptistery, the largest in Europe. Anywhere else it would be the featured attraction, but here it has to compete with the Cathedral and Tower.

The Cathedral is stunning.

And the Tower really does lean at a scary angle. They say it’s stable.

I’m such a dork.

It really is a beautiful building.

Closeup of the door of the Tower. You can climb to the top if you have the legs and the nerve. I didn’t have the time.

We did have time for a selfie, though.

On to Florence, where we had lunch at this lovely restaurant.

The Basilica di Santa Croce (Holy Cross).

The statue of Dante, outside the Basilica. The story of his remains the number of times they’ve been moved and hidden, and why they’re not interred here in his hometown, makes for fascinating reading.