My mom arrived in Italy on October 28th. After a few flight delays and an upgrade to first-class, she made it here in one piece sans luggage though. It took the airlines 2 days to find and deliver her luggage. We were supposed to leave for Pisa the afternoon that she arrived, but due to the lost luggage, we left on Sunday afternoon.
I didn't have to work on Monday the 31st or Tuesday the 1st due to what's called a "ponte" weekend in Italy. "Ponte" means bridge. Tuesday November 1st was All-Saints day and is a national holiday celebrated here. Most companies give their employees the Monday before to make it a long-weekend.
We had hoped to take the semi-fast train to Pisa, but that one was cancelled due to the mud slides in Cinqueterre that caused a few tunnels to collapse. We had to take the 4-hour train; getting around in Italy is never simple! We got in around dinner time, dropped our bags off at the hotel and set-out to explore the city. We started walking in one direction and found that there were no people around and that the town was quite dead. We then walked in the other direction and realized that THIS was where all the action was. We found a street lined with street vendors selling hand-made goods (jewelry, trinkets, clothes, shoes, etc). On this street, we stopped at an Enoteca where we had a glass of wine which came with complimentary gourmet snacks and we got to people-watch. We then went on a hunt for a dinner spot and stumbled upon a great trattoria that was full of locals; my favorite kind of restaurant!
Monday, we visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the duomo, the cemetery and Campo dei Miracoli (the park where all these landmarks set). That afternoon, we visited the Blu Museum which had an extensive Picasso exhibit. There was of course plenty of shopping during this day as well. Monday was halloween night. Italy started celebrating halloween roughly 5 years ago. Their idea of "dressing up" is painting their face or putting on a witch hat; it's quite funny. We enjoyed seeing all the students dressed-up and out on the town. We walked and walked and walked searching for a good restaurant to eat at and again, stumbled upon a very cute restaurant on a quiet street. We both ordered Pici Senesi con zucca e salsiccia (Pici pasta with pumpkin and sausage). Pici is a pasta that originates in this part of Italy. I had no idea until I went home and googled it. We were thrilled that we chose to order a dish that was from this region.
We took our time getting up on Tuesday and caught a 10:40am train back to Rome. We had seen all of the main sites in Pisa and wanted to do some shopping on Via del Corso in Rome and go to an aperitivo in Trastevere that evening. We didn't have a place in mind where we wanted to go for an aperitivo, so we wandered around until we found one. Two minutes after we sat down, I looked around the corner and realized that we were next to Andy's favorite restaurant, Carlo Menta. He ate there all the time when he lived in Rome last year. We, of course, had to get dinner there in honor of Andy. The place was packed!!! It is a huge restaurant and the crowds of people kept pouring in. The food is dirt cheap and the food is definitely good for the price.
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