Slightly Askew Tower of Pisa

Yesterday, we arrived in Lucca, the next stop on our whirl wind Italian vacation. It's a small, walled medieval town about 50 km west of Firenze (Florence for you noners).
We're staying at a quaint B&B, Villa Romantica. Tom is none too pleased about the name, but he can't deny it's probably the best place we've stayed to date. Of course, his opinion is largely swayed by not 1 but 2 english-speaking television channels!!

The town is surrounded by a 30 ft high wall that is also about 50 ft deep. It's pretty impressive. The top of the wall has been converted to a park with benches and a wide bike path. Inside of the wall, it is truly a medieval city. It's exactly as you'd imagine it except replace the rats and lepers with fancy shoe shops and restaurants.

Today, we rented bikes at one of the 2 bike shops near our hotel. Tom broke his first bike on a test ride - completely bending the deraillier. They gave him the only other road bike they had but it was a little too small. April's bike was a little on the small side too, but they were close enough. We rode about 25 km to the south to see the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was great to be on bikes again and off our aching feet. We took back streets but they were still busy, and we even had to traverse a 1km long tunnel. Tom flatted twice, so we spent almost the entire time in Pisa trying to pump up his tire (unsuccessfully) and then find a bike store (successfully with the help of 2 tourists and a couple of cops).

Overall Pisa, exceeded expectations. Based on what everyone told us, we were expecting a dump. It was actually pretty nice - but there wasn't much to do beyond see the tower and make fun of people taking lame pictures where they pretend to hold the tower up.

When we got back, Tom returned his bike because it was just too small and we went exploring the city and found a 3rd bike shop that also rented bikes, but high end ones. The owner was super cool and one of the employees was from the states so communication was a little easier than at the other shops. The owner offered to take us on his lunch time ride tomorrow up in the local mountains. We are thinking of doing it as we've been dying to do some climbing.