9/24 Wed – Livorno and Pisa
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008We call Franco to pick us up at 8:30 for our 9:13 train to Livorno, armed with our Magellan we call Maggie. Train right on time, 1 minute at each stop so you had better be ready – we pass thru lovely rural countryside, along the sea, making stops only at Castagneto, Cecina, Roignano, pass thru Castiglioncello, then Livorno; about 45 minutes.
Ok here we go again – we are supposed to pick up our car at the Port of Livorno but have no idea how far or what direction. There don’t seem to be any cabs around, only buses but with no idea which number goes where. Back inside to the cafe/store looking for someone to ask. A very nice young gal tries her best to stagger thru english and us staggering thru Italian finally get the idea we had better not walk. Finally a cab pulls up and off we go.
It seems to me like a pretty long way but even worse is none of the streets are straight – all just curve around every which way. Finally arrive at a huge dock, we never would have known which building was ours – even the cabbie had to go in with us and find the Europcar rental place, 3rd floor, way off in a corner.
Again, a nice young woman but seems to be a little limited in her abilities. Back downstairs to see our vehicle, a Lancia, a nice small, 2 door but going over everything we discover the passenger window doesn’t work. She works on it inside the panel but she has no idea so she says we could drive over to Pisa airport to see what they have. Since we are leaving from Pisa when we fly home we decide it won’t hurt to check it out. We plug in Maggie (thank goodness for her, again around curvy streets, then on to the highway and she takes us straight there. This car is a 4 door Puegot, very nice.
So now we are feeling pretty good about Maggie so we decide to locate the leaning tower as long as we’re here. Round and round we go with her leading us down dead ends, left turns when there aren’t any etc; 40 minutes or so later we decide to give up.
We punch Maggie in to least use of freeways and meander all the way back thru countryside, sometimes along the ocean, very nice and relaxing. Around 2 we come across a very small place with only a restaurant and a couple of stores, so we decide to stop and see if they are still serving lunch. “La Stazione” S. Ta Luce Pisa (I think the town is Luce in the county of Pisa.) We enter a huge bar area where it looks like some locals are enjoying conversation and beer. We are ushered thru a pair of double doors into a very large and charming dining room with no one in it. ( got pics) We order pizza and beer and it is wonderful. Nice and light and yummy. The waitress speaks good english and gives us a little info of the surrounding area.
Following lunch we decide to head out to an area called Marina di Castegneto Carducci on the sea. Cute little resort area, no hotels just small places and a small residential area, (again get lots of pics of the waterfront and town). We lollygag around here for about an hour then head the rest of the way to San Vincenzo along local roads.
When we get to S. V. apparently they have just constructed a new road to go under the railroad tracks – not in Maggie’s repertoire, wind up taking a road that leads us way out in the country, turn around, go back, find the original roundabout that takes us under.
Going this way we did discover where the big grocery market is located (Uni coop Tirreno) so we stop to load up. Now this is a fun adventure you don’t get to experience when on a tour. Very large – many fresh vegetables, fruits, fresh meats & fish; many varieties of cheese, large selection of fresh breads (foccocia, tuscany, etc), fresh deli; much more fresh foods that our stores. All of the products our stores carry plus they also have a large selection of hard liquor and liquors. What areas they are in was a challenge as not much english is spoken and of course everything is written in Italian.
Their check out methods were different as they have a separate line for members; (of course we chose wrong the first time). Their carts are very light weight with 2 baskets (about the size and shape of our carry baskets), stacked one on top – one on bottom and you must pay in cash unless you are a member; also many people have their own bags.
Now we have everything for breakfast, lunch – even tonic and limes. We bought a little for evening meals but since we have no oven, toaster oven or microwave we can’t do much that way. Little disappointing as we were told before we left these would be provided. Oh well, go with the flow.
sylviaknight