Before coming away I talked to my friend Jonny about travelling around Italy, and one thing I remember him saying was that you do not need more then a day in Pisa. I think he was right but I still think you can pack the day full of stuff to do. Once pretending to push over the tower, we went to look at how much it would cost to climb it. I knew it would be a lot but I was not about to pay 15 euros each to walk up a crooked tower to see an average view. Instead we paid 10 euros and got into 5 different buildings including the Cathedral, graveyard, 2 museums and a Baptistery. It turned out to be well worth the money seeing some amazing pieces of sculpture and art, learning details about the area and seeing the art of echo singing!
After doing all this we decided to buy a nice bottle of cheap wine and enjoy the comforts of the hostel, we did not realise we were about to have a history lesson and meet one of the most interesting people I have ever met. Guido, the 93 year old man we had been made to guess the age of the day before had not seemed to move in 24 hours, he just sat on the sofa watching TV. While Mel was updating facebook I decided to go and sit next to Guido and watch some TV, that is when he decided to start talking to me, in Italian! I had no idea what he was saying so I asked the guy on the desk if he would mind translating for me. At first he did not seem to want to and now I understand why as hours later it was 2am in the morning and Guido had filled me and Mel in on most of his life story, from joining the army in the second world war, hiding from the Nazis, his way with the women and his life as a tailor. It was amazing and Guido just reminded me of my Grandad, who had died 4 days earlier. I thanked the translator and Guido for that surprising but brilliant evening and the translator told me that he was happy that they had been able to cheer me up.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment