Pisa Pie

This weekend it's been a bit rainy. A nice reminder of home. Travelled out of the city today and decided to explore Pisa. It's only and hour train ride from Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence and drops you right off at Pisa Centrale. It's an easy walk from the train station to the Leaning Tower, cross over the Arno River, meander through side streets, stop and take a look at vendors merchandise and voila!, you catch a glimpse of that leaning tower. It was definitely a nice break from all the crowded streets of Florence, Pisa had quite a few people there but I didn't feel as cramped. The deal is that you have to buy a ticket to get into all of the buildings, the tower, cathedral, baptistery, and the campsanto, cemetery. The catch though is that you can pick and choose which ones you want to go into based on price. So I decided to explore the cathedral and the cemetery. During WWII the cemetery was bombed and in attempts to save the frescoes that once lined the walls they removed them and put them in safe hiding. But today you can still see some underlying drawings of where the frescoes used to be. The cathedral built by Giovanni Pisano became a model for Romanesque churches throughout Tuscany and characterized the Pisan-Romanesque style. There was a great mosaic of Christ in Majesty staring down upon you when you enter the cathedral, breathtaking. Right when I left the cathedral the rain started to fall again so I ran for cover and my shoes got soaked.