Today many things went wrong.

We had breakfast at 9 o'clock. Quite early. However, since it was typically Italian and not quite to our taste, we had a croissant 🥐 and yogurt 🥄 with a glass of orange juice 🍊 We skipped the packaged pastries. Something savory would have been nice. But well, let's continue with the text 😇

We spent what felt like hours planning our trip ⏱️ It started yesterday evening and continued into the new round. Originally, we wanted to stop in a picturesque fishing village and then continue to Genoa, Turin, and then towards home. It turns out that Genoa, a city directly on the western coast of Italy, is mega expensive, parking is difficult, and the connection to other almost equally expensive places is also bad. Goodbye plan 🥲🙄😩

There were several options but now we have a new plan. We're going to spend a few more days at Lake Garda. It's so popular with Germans, as every Italian has told us here. And then probably through Ravensburg back home. We still have to visit the board game museum, and it's actually quite nice to start and end there 🧩♟️

After finishing the planning, we got ready and wanted to walk to the bus 🚍 that comes every 20 minutes. It takes about 2 minutes to get to the bus stop - important information! When we went out the door, the bus drove past us and we decided to go back in and wait by the air conditioner ☀️❄️ 4 minutes before the bus was supposed to come, we went out the door again and the bus drove past us again. So we walked there this time to make sure it didn't happen again. This time, of course, the bus was a few minutes late. Wow 🤦🏼‍♀️😅 This time with tickets purchased and activated in the app 😌 We still had fun waiting, see picture 1 😄

From the main train station, we headed towards the starting point of the city rally. After some initial difficulties, it turned out to be really cool and interesting. The app has many games for many cities, including Frankfurt 🙈

It was about small figures by Keith Haring that we had to 'capture' so that they wouldn't knock over the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Besides the prank, they also had love in mind ❤

With the help of the rally, we got closer and closer to the tower, which was the goal after 1.5 hours, 3 km, and 10 challenges.

First, we took a break and sat down in the shade on one of the meadows. Then we went to the ticket booth. The climb up the tower alone costs 20€, the nearby Baptistery, the church/cathedral, the cemetery building-thing, and the two museums each cost 7€. The combination ticket for everything together is 27€ 💸 Thanks to the combination ticket, we were able to pass the 3 hours until the tower climb at 6 p.m. and see the other things 👀 But it wasn't so exciting and we didn't understand everything 😂

Since we still had time and it was hot, and our feet were a bit sore from almost 3 weeks of walking, we lay down on the meadow again and dozed off. Very relaxing and popular with the locals 😴

Oh, by the way, the famous photos couldn't be missing, even though it was really embarrassing because everyone does it. But at least we had quite cool poses and not the standard 'I'm holding up the tower' picture 📷

The climb was not that exhausting, and it wasn't that high either. On the way down, we also counted the steps. You can think about how many, the solution is at the very bottom 😇 The tilt while going up and down the stairs is confusing. You can really feel it inside. See the photo taken from the inside out. It looks crooked but was taken straight. 🌀

When we arrived at the bottom, we deserved something to eat, so we ordered Caprese as an appetizer and Carbonaraday, that is two portions for 10€, and cold drinks 🍝😌

After refueling, we strolled back towards the train station to take the bus home. And you can guess three times. The bus drove past us when we were still 2 minutes away from the stop, and of course, it was 5 minutes early 🤦🏼‍♀️ The next bus just didn't come, so we waited for the bus for almost 45 minutes. So I've never experienced buses being early before 🤷🏼‍♀️ Lesson learned: if you're not at the bus stop, the bus is early, if you're at the bus stop, the bus is late. Great 👌🏼

Now we're packing and sorting things. Today especially, because tomorrow we're going to Riomaggiore for one night and we have to climb 200 steps from the parking lot to the hotel. So we're only packing a small bag and a backpack so we don't have to carry the suitcases up there. But the view is supposed to be a dream 😍⛰️🌊

Solution: There were 207 steps all the way to the top of the bell tower 🔔