It's still leaning.....

and DO NOT call it the leaning tower of "pizza"!!! Our tour guide made it a point as we were driving to Pisa that most people pronounce it incorrectly. It's not "Peet-sa", it's Pee-za. That's all for the diction lesson, thank you very much.

I wish that I could have climbed up there to see the surrounding countryside from the top of the tower. The steps were too daunting for me. **note to self: next trip to Italy, be in better shape.**

One thing that I did NOT like about the area surrounding the tower is that it has a carnival atmosphere to it, and I don't mean this in a good way. There are men selling "real" Rolex watches for 20Euro!!!!! and "real"Dolce and Gabana belts for 10Euro. Okee dokey, I'll have one of each. Periodically, the polizia come and chase them, but they return in short order. It was kinda scary. We only spent about 2 hours here so it was enough time to see the tower, take photos and get back on the road. Oh, yeah, I had an espresso and a gelato, my usual afternoon snack!

See all the people standing in the grass in the second picture? That's me in the black with a totally tourist tote bag on my shoulder. I wanted "the" picture of me posing, holding up the leaning tower with my bare hands. My darling, oh, yeah, husband, could not grasp the concept of how my hands had to be, so he was no help getting me positioned. Men are so right brained (or is it left brained, or no brained?) So my picture , it just looks like I'm holding my hands up for no good reason. I should get a t-shirt that reads "we went to the leaning tower of Pisa, and all I got was this lousy picture"!!!!

Okay, I'm done. Two posts in one day is too much. I just had some extra time and wanted to post some more pictures.

Ciao, bella.