Pisa and Pistoia

Well, Pisa isn't much to look at except the great square. The town has a lot of remnants of the Roman walls and city. But of course the centerpiece (at the outskirts of the town) is the leaning tower. And boy is it leaning!!! There's been all sorts of conservation efforts taken since about 8 years after the tower was completed in the 1400s. Oops! Apparently it's safe now. Riiiiiight.... The cathedral was also quite spectacular with brightly colored mosaics and a huge cavernous central area.



Next I went to Pistoia to try and find my family! Haha! My grandfather's family is from there, so I thought I'd just show up and see if I have any relatives around. Pistoia is definitely not a tourist town. Cute, but everything was closed. The church was closed, the baptistry, the bell tower, the tourist information office. But not the county cultural information office! And it was there that I found a man who "knew" of Magrinis.


He told me Magrinis lived in Montecatini Terme. So I went there. And it was even smaller than Pistoia. Everywhere I went I looked for Magrini on the name plate at houses and stared at people to see if they looked like my grandfather, but no luck. Montecatini Terme was actually pretty cool, though, and I strolled around the hills of Tuscany for a bit and a huge park surrounding thermal baths (although everything here seemed to be closed too). I also happened upon the Municipal Building...I wonder if one of the folks below is related to me!!! And then of course I found a gelati parlor and ate some ice cream before heading back to Florence!!