Dear Pisa,
What is your purpose in life? If it is to lure innocent tourists to see your miniature tower — slightly off kilter — deprive them of good food, a momentum for keep sake and god- forbid a photo opt.. then, congratulations! You have succeeded.
p.s. We will NOT be back.
Sincerely,
GQ Trippin
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Italy has been good to us thus far. But you know what they say, “all good things must come to an end.” And here I thought I’ve seen it all — bland tours, mediocre meals, lackluster locals — but Pisa takes the cake.
Here we go. A few of our unfortunate experiences in Pisa and reasons why you should think twice before visiting.
- Transportation: Two train transfers and nearly a half a day in transit later only to spend 30 minutes. And that’s the honest truth. We came. We saw. We took our goofy leaning picture, avoiding the ever- so- popular, talk- to- the- hand pose. And then we left. 30 minutes tops! And that’s including a short stop for lunch.
- Food: Speaking of lunch. When I say it’s bad, what I really mean is awful. When you have Phillipinos (no offense) making you pizza in Italy, something just doesn’t add up. I thought we were safe ordering a pepperoni pizza. How could you screw up pepperoni pizza?! With invisible olives. Invisible because we did not see any, but our pizza had a faint smell and hint of olives. Ugh olives — our achilles heel in food.
- Souvenir: The vendors that line the streets alongside the Tower are mean crooks. How am I suppose to buy a shirt if I can’t even see it out of the plastic cover let alone try one on for size? Look but don’t touch does not apply to clothing, idiots! And when I finally got to try one, realized the small was too small (but they didn’t have a medium, they tried to convince me to buy the small because it “fits”. And when I didn’t, all hell broke lose as I was shoo’d away with evil stares and fowl Italian slurs. Lovely.
- Photo finish: Here’s the piece de resistance. Explain to me why we are not allowed to step on the grass? Don’t mind us, we just traveled 6 hours, 2 trains for a photo we are not allowed to take. The slight plus side, if you could call it that, is that the lazy guards know you’re here for that one picture so they will “let” you take your picture while they pretend to look occupied before blowing their whistles at you. We ran on and off the grass about 3 times before we were somewhat satisfied enough to leave.
I love you, Italy.. but you should be embarrassed. The worst part, we could have spent 1 more day in beautiful Cinque Terre. This is one of those moments where you’d say, “If I could do it all over again.. I wouldn’t.”
If Pisa is on your bucket places- to- check- off list then remind yourself that over and over again. It’s just something to check off the list. Don’t expect more unless you want to be disappointed.
