Transition Stages

One thing we learnt with our new Tour de France experience was the importance of making everyday, not just the big ticket items, jam packed with action. So I decided that the small days on the Tour De Bill would have to be as full of excitment and adventure as I possibly can make them. The big tickets items have been fairly easy to identify, they are the things I knew I was going to do before the whole thing started, i.e. Antibes, Puccini Fest, Rome, and then we're not to sure what happens after that..., but anyways there are little days between each major centre which need to be filled with action and adventure.

I left Puccini Fest, and Torre Del Lago behind on Sunday morning with a bit of glee that I was finally getting away from the money hungry small town, but sadend that I would miss out on the chance to see La Boheme. The nearest town to Torre Del Lago just happens to be a small town called Pisa, I thought I was in luck with a chance to visit the home of Pizza, unfortunatly this is not what the town was famous for. When I arrived in town I was very worried that it appeared as if their local Tower was going to collapse within the hour, I come from a post 9-11 world so am trained to immediatly report anything that looks out of order. The problem was the local authorities didn't seem all that concerned when I reported that their tower looked like it was going to fall over, seriously it was on a huge incline.

Anyways, I soon got over those sorts of jokes and decided to stand around and judge the rest of the tourists who were all more interested in getting a photo of themselves either pushing over or holding up the Leaning Tower, few at all seemed interested in the actual history of the church. Seriously, it was 9 am on a Sunday morning, there were probably 1000 people in the square/area around the church, and 350 of them were standing around pretending, with another 350 taking their photos, the other 300 were in the WC line (which I soon found out). This all lead me to decide that it was time to introduce a new item in the litany of Mirtna Group Prizes - the Mirtna Group Prize for Ultimate Tourist Photo - this $100 prize is being offered to anyone who can get a photo of them selves either a) holding up, or b) pushing over a historic tourist attraction. That is- get a photo of yourself actually pushing against the Leaning Tower of Pizza and win a prize- think about it, it would be the ultimate picture.

Unfortunatly, when all a town has to offer is a Tower on a rakish angle you can pretty qucikly cover your days touristing goals. So it was about 10:30 in the morning and I was done for the day. I had to add a few items to the itinery. The best thing about TomTom is it offers an option to avoid toll roads - if you choose to do this it means you will be spending a lot longer getting between places, in this case this was a bonus. I took a long country drive around Tuscany, before ending up in Lucca, a Tuscan town famous for being the brith place of Puccini - keeping the theme of the weekend going... Anyways I got to Lucca with just enough time to find a pub to watch the Hungarian F1 - Lucca it turns out it lame ville and had no pubs with the F1 on, seriously, Maranello is about 2 hours away- they couldn't find a TV to show the race - long story short I got to Lucca and needed to find a TV quickly, I hired a bike and headed off on my search, I rode and rode, along the cobble stoned streets, around the outer wall of the Roman ruins, and up and down all over town - but there was no TV to be found, defeated I went back to the bus and had to make do with the 3 by 4 inches of Messy Days Vision. Hamilton won, it was boring.

Next day I was off to the Medival town of Florence, home of the Meddici, the Uffizi Gallery, Michalengelo's David, and birthplace of Machiavelli. So I drove towards town, and after much fucking about finally found a place to park the whale for the day. Optimistically I paid for parking until 8 pm - knowing that I was going to be spending a long day touristing. I headed into town on foot and quickly came to the Medici Palace, the original location of the David, there was a fake, which was quite impressive - old Michalangelo knew what he was doing if you know what I am saying, anyways I went through the castle and marveled at the tresures inside, in particular Michealangelo's Victory. I was firing myself up for a big visit to the Uffizi Gallery, one of the finest gallaries in the world, I left the castle and went to the Statue of Truth and Light, otherwise known as the statue of Nicoli Macchiaveli- the prophet. That's why I'm so much better then you at 500 and 10, 2,3 Dav Rossi, I am euridite and you didn't know history went back more then 150 years...

Where were we? oh yes, the Machiavelli statue was good, and I was primed to go into the gallerey, After nearly 9 months of travelling I was finally going to an ultimate Medieval gallerey, that is until I realised that the Uffizi was shut on Mondays- I wasn't happy. The good news is that I still had an ace in the hole, Florence was also the home of the David, so I headed off to the Acadmia to see that, until I then found out the Acadmia was also shut on Mondays, I was now furious. Florence, as far as I could be concerned could go and Fuck its self.

Fortunately there were many other things I could do in Florence on a Monday... Of course, with the towns two biggest attractions closed for the day it meant that the other attractions had thousands of people at them. The very impressive church had lines longer then anything I have ever seen, so I cut it. The doors on the baptistery where very impressive- when I have the chance to google I will remember the name of the artist- but very famous doors... I also managed to go to the museum of the Church, which housed Michaelangelo's Prega - or something like that, which was also very impressive. The meuso also had the original panels from the famous doors (above) I looked on, barely able to stifle a yawn till I noticed two chaps carrying some sort of chest over their shoulders, with a squint I realised that it was supposed to represent a certain box known as the Holy Grail - stangley in the form of a box holding the Ten Commandments, not in the form of a decendant of the line of the Jeebers'- Why would Dan Brown lie I asked myself? (more to come on this later) but I soon got over it and moved on.



Anyways, I was know about done in Florence, I weant for a bit of a hike, including going up the big hill that looks down on the town, and then went back to the Messy Days, my long, long day of touristing was done, by about 4:30, my parking booking had been far too optimistic.

Anyways, two good days, but in the wash up at the end of the day Florence is off the list- why would you have your two biggest attractions shut on a Monday? Stupid Roman Wannabees.