Le nostre avventure in Italia ... La parte finale!

Yes, I know that my Italian trip report has taken forever, I'm not sure anybody has been reading it anyway but you know, in the interest in finishing things I'll share with you the last leg of the trip. If you want to play catch up then check out Part 1 - Parma, Part 2 - Bologna and Part 3 - Florence.

So when I left you last time we were heading towards Pisa. 

Now every time I said I was going to Pisa I got met with people pulling a bit of a face, telling me it wasn't very nice and generally saying bad things about the place. Needless to say I didn't really have high hopes for the city but also wasn't concerned as we were there for one night and would only really get half a day to explore. 

We arrived at our accommodation in Pisa at midday. We stayed at the B&B Guerrazzi which is run by Alberto and Mariaelena. The B&B has just one suite made up of a large double bedroom, a separate dining area (with sofa bed), bathroom and a lovely large outdoor terrace. It more than met our expectations and was beautifully appointed. Alberto met us and took time to talk through everything, give us restaurant recommendations, a walking route to make the most of the city and suggestions of where to find that all important gelato. Mariaelena provided us with homemade bread, cakes and biscuits - all of which were outstanding. Out of everywhere we stayed in Italy this may well have been our favourite stop and was definitely the children's favourite.  Alberto and Mariaelena were fabulous hosts, not minding when my son's nose exploded all over the white sheets and even took us to the airport the following morning. If I ever go back to Pisa, I know where I'll be staying and I can highly recommend it. Just a short walk out of the main centre of Pisa and only a couple of minutes drive from the airport - it's very handily located.

What we did in Pisa...

I have to say my experience of Pisa? Nothing like what I imagined given other people's opinions. I thought it was clean, safe, inviting...much more so than Bologna. Significantly less graffiti too even though I'd been told that was a problem. I suspect the people who had visited Pisa and been to Florence too and perhaps hadn't ventured as far as the graffiti capital of Bologna! 

As we only had a few hours in Pisa, we did want any respecting tourist would do. Yes, we headed straight towards the famous tower. We had a nice meander through the streets of Pisa which were relatively quiet it being August and all. We didn't actually go up the tower because it was hideously overpriced and we didn't really feel like we'd gain much from it. Instead we stood and looked at it, pretended to push it over and sat around laughing at all the people pretending to push it over. It was a very busy place and only slightly marred by all the street sellers. Would have been nicer without them but they weren't too pushy. The tower was pretty cool to see, though it didn't really look as leaning as I had expected for some reason!

We also stopped by to admire the Keith Haring mural. Keith Haring was a young American artist. The Pisa mural on the side of church of St Anthony came about by chance and the theme is peace and harmony in the world. I believe it was quite controversial at the time as Haring was gay and St Anthony is a Catholic church.  The children enjoyed looking at this and my daughter has since discussed this work in her Year 3 class so she was very pleased to have had the opportunity to see it first-hand!

We ambled on back stopping for a (dreadful) bite to eat and found the ice-cream place recommended to us before sitting by the Arno for a short while.  At night we headed out for a meal and again felt comfortable and safe navigating the city streets even though it was a bit of a ghost town.

Places we ate in Pisa....

Pasticceria Salza - Let it be known I would NOT recommend this place. It looks inviting enough on one of the main thourghfare's through the city towards the tower however service was absolutely dreadful, the food was barely edible and to add insult to injury it was hideously overpriced.

Gelateria De' Coltelli - The menu was all in Italian so as a non-Italian speaker it was hard for me to be sure what was what - that's totally my issue of course and not theirs! I played it safe and ordered chocolate which was delicious. They use local, natural ingredients so it's good authentic Tuscan gelato.

Pizzeria del Galileo - I pre-booked this before leaving the UK and was pleased to find it recommended by our hosts too. We had booked an early table at the 7.30pm opening time but they didn't open very promptly so we had a couple of walks around the block. The service was okay and the food was nice and reasonably priced. It was very family-orientated, they were happy to share the pizza between the children and there were lots of other families there too. 

All-in-all I thought Pisa was a very nice city. Sure it's not got the allure of Florence however it was a nice place to visit and spend a few hours. I'm certainly glad I didn't listen to the opinions of others and get put off visiting altogether!

Therein concludes my Italian adventures. It was a great holiday and I'm already yearning to go back! If you want to know any more about any of our travels, do get in touch!

PS One last blurry but obligatory gelato shot!