The Leaning Tower of Pisa

Pisa is one train stop before Livorno. We hopped off the train there and found a public bus that would take us near the Leaning Tower. We realized we had gone one stop too far so we jumped off the bus and walk/ran back to the correct area.

We were running really short on time at this point so we just went to get a quick view of the tower, snapped a few pictures, and went in search of a taxi.

There were none in sight and when we asked a group of police officers where we could catch a taxi they pointed us to the other side of the tower. This was several hundred yards away so we took off sprinting and dodging tourists. Every taxi we asked either wouldn’t take us to Livorno or was already occupied by tourists, just waiting on them while they were sightseeing. We finally found one nice taxi driver who didn’t speak English, but seemed to at least understanding our urgency and where w e were trying to get. He pulled out his cell phone to call a taxi for us when one finally pulled up. He talked to the taxi driver for us who agreed to take us to the Livorno port. We were down to 15 minutes before we were supposed to be back aboard the ship. The taxi driver said it would take at least 25 to 30 minutes, but he would do his best. He certainly meant it and was driving like a pro, weaving in and out of traffic, passing cars, and whirling around a curve that made me slide all the way across the back seat. We got caught in traffic a bit, but made it back to the port. Our ship was at the commercial port and the taxi driver first went to the wrong side of the pier. He sped around to the other side and we finally spotted our ship. A crazy taxi ride costing 60 euros later and we were thankful to make it back to the ship! We were about 15 minutes late, but the “All Aboard” time is 30 minutes before the ship is scheduled to depart, which gave us a few minutes to spare. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who had difficulty making it back and the ship’s departure was slightly delayed. We’ll certainly remember Pisa, maybe not just for the leaning tower, but for our sprint by it.