Day 7: Florence and Pisa

It was nice to have a later wake up call (7:45 a.m.) though I still got up early to prepare with waking the kids up.

We changed the itinerary a little to accommodate those who wanted to shop instead of the guided tour. I saw churches and admired architecture.

Santa Maria del Fiore

The Duomo

A copy of the Gates of Paradise on the door of the Baptistery

After that, Ted, John, and I went to the bridge that had gold shops built on it. After a good lunch, we did a good bit of shopping. It started to rain around 2:00, but luckily, I had my umbrella.

Then we took off for Pisa. We arrived and stayed for a couple of hours to shop and tour the churches. I managed to exchange my 30,000 Lira for 100 French Francs. That left me with 1,000 Lira as a souvenir.

We left Ernesto, our bus driver, at the railroad station in Pisa and then had a three-hour plus wait for our train to Paris. Everyone was amused by a transvestite who was also waiting for a train. The students pretended to take pictures of each other, making sure that he/she was in them.

Kristen, Tamara, our guide Alessandria Innelli and I at the Leaning tower of Pisa

We finally go on the train at 10:30 p.m. and managed to get everyone on before it took off. We had to go through three cars to get to our couchettes while the train was moving.

Unfortunately, a fellow who was holding the door for us groped some of our students.

The police at Genoa were called and Alessandra talked to them. The bottom line was that if we pressed charges, we would have to stay in Genoa to press charges. The offender stated that he accidentally fell on them because the train was moving, which caused him to lose his balance. The girls did not want to stay and so they let the cad go. He could not get on the same car as we were on. This was the low point of the trip and ruined the student’s time overnight on the train.

The nightlife of Florence from our place of residence