Day 13 Italy- Pisa & Cinque Terre

An early start today with many beautiful places to see. Chris, Elisabeth, Marloejse & the children set off to Pisa to see the famous leaning tower. All but Marloejse were happy to walk around & explore so she made her way to the top.


A combination of poor sandy soil & ground water caused the tower to subside after only 3 levels had been completed. It was then left for 100 years before they built some more and it moved again. As well as leaning the tower is actually curved. The only part perpendicular to the ground is the new bell tower. An English engineer came up with an idea to slowly remove the soil on one side of the tower (at a rate of 100 grams per hour) to counter the subsidence. It has worked and has reduced the lean from 5.5m to 4.7. 300 cameras now monitor the tower constantly to make sure.

The kids also had a chance to learn the origins of the fairy tale Pinocchio and the local author of the book. They all came back with hand painted wooden Pinocchio dolls.

Luke, Louise & Simone took a bus to a region of Tuscany known as Cinque Terre. Five small coastal villages make up this fascinating region. The drive took in many fields of Basil, Olive groves & vineyards as well as the famous Carrara Marble fields where they cut the exquisite white stone from the mountains.

The roads are so narrow that vehicles are restricted to certain hours so we headed off on foot through the first village Manarolo. We walked the cliff tops along Via Dell Amore (the walkway of love) to the next village Riomaggiore where we boarded a small boat to get to Vernazza the next stop.

 From here it was back on the boat to the biggest of the 5 villages – Monterosso. Here we explored the tiny streets and found one of the many fantastic little restaurants. It was a small family run kitchen with delicious home made pesto for Simone while Luke & Louise shared spaghetti marinara full of local mussels ,clams and other fishy things. It was divine.