Day 8 - Pisa and shopping and Siena, again

Today was a little more spread out for everyone. Chari Eastman, her son Ian, Johnathan and Tyler motored over to Pisa to check out some bad foundation work on a bell tower, most everyone else went the opposite direction to see if they could score some low-cost Italian fashions, and Mike and Jake Kindred went into Siena to check out some more of the city.

The shopping was at an "outlet" mall where many famous Italian brands were represented: Gucci, Prada, and, well, that's about all I know. It was not too successful of an outing as the prices were still very high (even though very discounted.) Carol Jensen did score a nice pair of shoes for about 80% of the original cost, and Ed found a nice jacket.

Siena site seeing landed Mike and Jake mostly under the city. There is a series of tunnels that connect much of the major areas of the city. Apparently not a well-known feature of the city, but maybe there will be more to tell about if the rest of us get to go (here's hoping…)

The Pisa outing was a little more successful, although it had the potential to go very wrong as it was a little more adventurous. There were a thousand ways to get there, so we took the way that was recommended by our tour guide from Monday. There was potential for some traffic, but all was OK as we got there in a little over 2 hours. We saw everything that was contained in the Field of Miracles: The Baptistry, the Duomo, and the Bell Tower. We didn't go into the Baptistry, and we were not able to climb the tower (4 hour wait - sheesh!!), so we went into the Duomo, which was quite impressive. Their were paintings everywhere, along with some mummified remains of some patron saints, which Johnathan informed, quite loudly when questioned; "That? Oh, yeah. That's a dead body in there…" The tower was quite impressive, and you could see, just barely, where they tried to correct it with each major construction attempt over the centuries. To this day it continues to slowly fall over. Sinking sand, I tells ya…