This was going to be quite an adventure, given the fact that they didn't speak English and we didn't speak Italian. We were all going to have to rely on my 15-year-old cousin to do all the translating for us.
My uncle had sent them a photo of us, and I was pretty impressed because they recognized us the minute we got off the train.
Our first stop was the Leaning Tower.
No, we didn't take the usual "hold up the Leaning Tower" photo (however, I will say that link is actually highly entertaining!)
The family then took us through the rest of the Piazza dei Miracoli including the Monumentale and Pisa Duomo.
The Baptistry of St. John was amazing. The building is actually a giant musical instrument. We have a video that I sadly don't have uploaded at the time, but I will add it when I get home tonight.
After walking around Pisa to see a few more sites, we headed to lunch (I had Pasta Del Mare and a breaded meat with marinara sauce). It was quite a strange experience to sit across the table from someone for two hours and not be able to communicate with them directly!
After lunch we headed to my families house in Nodica. I shared some family photos with my great-aunt,
and we were given some Port from the island that my other aunt's husband is from. After visiting for awhile and taking some photos, we headed up to the La Castella di Santa Ana, a former castle that is now a church in the region. There were great views of the entire Tuscan region.
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From there we headed to a few more sites around the region: Viareggio, where Carnevale is held each year, which we JUST narrowly missed on our trip. We then went to the home of Giacomo Puccini in Lucca on Lake Trasimeno.
By then we were STARVING and ready to eat! The family took us to a traditional Pisan restaurant. We learned that even though Florance and Pisa shared the same region (Tuscany), the two cities are actually rivals, and Pisa has developed its own dialect of Italian and way of cooking. The restaurant was a fixed menu, which consisted of about 15 small courses - LOTS of seafood! Matt and I agreed our favorite was a marinated octopus with Laurel (Bay) Leaf and Orange.
So 15 courses and 3 bottles of wine later, when we thought we were going to explode (beware when commenting out loud that you are starving while in Italia!), we were served this amazing concoction of Rum, Sambucca, and Cognac all simmered with lemon and orange peels and served in a coffee cup. Unsure if we were going to puke or get completely wasted, we both finished our cups and we AMAZED to find that out stomachs were settled and we were as good as new. GOOD GOD I LOVE THE ITALIANS!
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The family dropped us off back at the train station and we got back into Florance about 10pm. Even though this was SUPER early for a Friday night, we headed straight back to the hotel.
It truly was a WONDERFUL day - how many people get the chance to meet some of their relatives from the country of their origin??? Needless to say, we hit the pillows HARD that night. Must have been the Sambucca....
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