So, we’ve been failing and failing to put up anything about our trip to Italy at the beginning of December.  There’s no real excuse for it.  We just got stressed out about getting our UK visas and moving.  Then we got here, and we’ve wanted to post the stuff off the tops of our heads.  So, though perhaps not the most inspired trip log, here at least is something, with pictures :).

The Duomo in Florence

So, this trip was a bit of an experiment.  I’m telecommuting full-time now, for obvious reasons.  Terran had a conference to attend in Pisa, Italy.  The hotel offered WiFi internet.  I could work from the hotel and attend some of the conference social events as his guest.  And, best of all, a mutual friend and colleague of Terran’s — Kiri — would be there to present the research that she and Terran are both working on right now.  So, there was the promise of extra company.

All of this worked out swimmingly except for the work part.  The WiFi in the rooms turned out to be broken most of the time, and the hotel staff was either uninterested or unequipped to do anything about it.  There was functioning WiFi in the lobby, and I ended up doing most of the work that required Internet there.  It was a hassle, but the rest of the trip was so delightful that I’m willing to try it again.  This problem of hotels promising more amenities than they are actually prepared to provide is real, though, and it would stink to get stuck someplace for a week where I really CAN’T work.

Me and Kiri with Machiavelli

At any rate, I arrived almost a day before Terran (of course his flight was delayed, causing him to miss a connection in Rome).  I met up with Kiri and a local friend of hers and got a lovely tour around Pisa.  The following day, which was the day before the conference actually started, we took the train to Florence and spent the day wandering around the city streets, peering into shop windows, oogling statues, and touring the Duomo cathedral.

After that, the conference started, and we snatched hours in the evening or bits of time away from work to see the sights around Pisa itself.

It turns out that the famous Leaning Tower is both more and less than you would expect.  On one hand, it reall does lean a lot.  On the other hand, the dedicated pictures tend to make it look much taller than it is.  It’s the bell tower of the Pisa cathedral, and stands a story or two taller than the church itself.  It’s part of a really amazing plaza called the Piazza dei Miracoli or Plaza of the Miracle, along with the church, the baptistry and tombs.

This photograph is from the opposite side of the plaza from the Leaning Tower, which makes it look much smaller than it is, but you ought to be able to see the lean anyway.  You can’t really see the tombs, which are to the left of the baptistry in the foreground.

The baptistry has truly amazing acoustic qualities.  Every half hour on the half hour, a voice student comes in to

Piazza dei Miracoli

demonstrate it.  We listened to her sing a three-note chord with herself because the chamber echoed back the notes she sang for what seemed like forever.  It was amazing.

So the rest of the story is that I was able to get guest passes to most of the fun social events attached to the conference.  The biggest event was an afternoon trip to neighboring Luca, an ancient walled city, where we were treated to a guided tour and then some time on our own to explore.  After night fell, Kiri was able to lead us to a geocache that featured a meditation labyrinth carved into the entrance to an old church.

Now, I’m enjoying wrapping the text around the images, which is something I haven’t played at before, but I actually don’t have enough text left to separate them :). So I’m just going to give you a list of pictures and captions.

Meditation labyrinth in Luca

View from the top of the Leaning Tower

Fibonacci's tomb! (Plaza dei Miracoli)

Church of Santa Maria della Spina

View of Pisa from the bridge over the river

And that was our trip!