PP- Lost in Pisa

Dear all! I already wrote the following post last Tuesday, but due to lack of power and internet, I haven't had the opportunity to publish it yet. However, after a new wiring installation, we have solved our power problem and we are now proud owners of an Italian SIM card with an incredible 10 GB data volume!

After crossing the Austrian border into Italy last night with a stunning speed of 30 km/h over the mountain pass, our journey led us straight to Tuscany. We reached the city of Livorno at four o'clock in the morning after numerous honking concerts by the Italian truck drivers and spent the night directly by the Mediterranean Sea at a mild 13 degrees Celsius. Dobby and Frodo jumped into the water happily this morning, but it was too cold for us.

After packing our things, we headed towards Pisa. After all, you can't travel through Tuscany without seeing the leaning tower in the small city at least once. After a few more honking concerts, we finally arrived there.

We parked our air castle at the only place that seemed suitable (a free parking lot!) and went in search of the leaning tower of Pisa! The combination of our parking lot and our incredibly poor local knowledge resulted in a one and a half hour journey, covering a distance of about 1 km (as the crow flies), and a lot of exciting discussions about directions and landmarks.

We were about to give up when suddenly, out of nowhere, we could see the tower in the distance. So we went there, took some photos, and went back to the bus! We thought we could drive a little further along the coast today, but that didn't happen, of course. Although we really intended to pay attention to the way back, in order to find our way back, we were so distracted by the sand-colored houses and the colorful hustle and bustle in this typical Italian hectic-romantic city that we forgot about it after a few steps. So when we started the return journey, we only remembered that we had approached the tower from the left, took a path that we thought was the right one, and continued to wander through Pisa.

We only realized much later how many different ways there actually are to approach a round tower from the left. Well, no problem, we can ask someone. Unfortunately, not in Italian. It took a while until we found someone we could communicate with adequately in English. We received the encouraging words "at least 4-5 km" and a set of directions. It was slowly getting dark and we were completely off track from what we had seen in Pisa on the way there. Now there were large apartment blocks everywhere, there were few and very narrow sidewalks, and the crowds were completely missing.

After about an hour, we reached the stupid leaning tower again, but this time we miraculously managed to orient ourselves and after another hour, our beautiful yellow camper stood out like the sun among the other parked cars. So off we went to find a nice place to spend the night! Of course, we got lost in one of the countless roundabouts, turned into an abandoned sandy path, turned around, and found ourselves in front of blue flashing sirens flapping on a car with the inscription 'Polizia'.

We stopped and a police officer rushed towards us. We looked around and discovered three heavily armed men with machine guns. They stood stiffly in front of us without any expression on their faces and blocked our way. "One wrong move and we're dead," I joked. But when the police officer started talking, our dogs started barking happily and our hearts skipped a beat.

The police officer made it clear to us that he needed our documents, which we willingly gave him. As he disappeared with them, we feverishly tried to figure out what we could have done wrong, but we just couldn't think of anything that would justify the presence of machine guns.

After what felt like an eternity, he returned, gave us back our papers, said "okay, bye, bye," and indicated that we could now continue driving. With trembling knees, we did so, still impressed by the authoritarian aura of the Italian police, and reached our destination. Of course, much later than we had intended. But who cares? We have time! We'll just continue tomorrow.