Well.. We were actually eyeing on Barcelona during Christmas. Though we started looking out for airfares and other details as early as mid-October, it appeared that it still wasn't enough as all the attractive airfares were sold out. Since the costs were too exorbitant, we decided to chill out at home during the holidays.

All of a sudden, on a dusky December evening, a beaming Balaji sent a mail to check out the web-site of RyanAir. As we did so, simply we couldn't believe our eyes. RyanAir was selling air tickets to fly to various destinations from £2 (yeah.. just Two pounds). We changed our mindset to go to Italy (since RyanAir didn't cover Spain! ) and went ahead booking for 7 people. While in the process, we saw the number of seats disappearing like hot cakes. The return ticket to Pisa including the airport taxes came up to £29.x. We even called up RyanAir office twice to check up whether the fare quoted in the web-site was right. Several hours after the booking, we had another doubt whether the Pisa mentioned there is the right Pisa in Italy or is it some remote place in some other country. That doubt also got cleared after a call. Days after booking, we were in the bad books of many of our friends for not telling them about the deal (?)!

Haribaskar took care of booking the accommodation there. He had a tough time on that as the booking clerks whom he spoke to over phone couldn't understand English. Next came up the Visa formality. Seems that Italians are not too keen on promoting tourism in their country. While most other European nations had a rather easy visa procedure, Italians made us visit their embassy thrice to get a Tourist visa for 5 days. Some figured out that it might be because of the rush due to Christmas season. Anyway, we got the Visa duly stamped on the day before the travel. 

NetDecisions gave us a 10-day break on account of Christmas & New Year. Our travel itinerary was to start to Italy on Sunday, 24^th December 2000 and return to London on Thursday, 28^th December 2000. All the 7 characters (Harikumar, Hari Baskar, Ganesan, Sridhar, Ramaprasad, Ramesh & myself) started from home on the wee hours of 24^th Dec. to reach London Stansted Airport 90 minutes later. The spirits were a bit too high during the cab trip to the airport itself. London Stansted Airport is quite big to be called as a small airport but it is too far from London to have the city name prefixed in it. 

On the day of departure, it started raining. It should have mattered very little for us but for boarding, as we were led out of the departure lounge, we were out in the open and the air craft was there a couple of hundred metres away. Putting our umbrellas to use, we climbed up the ladder to board the aircraft, which was by far, a different experience. The flight was too good (not just taking in to account the airhostesses, but the other things as well) for the fare we paid. After a peaceful 2 hours journey, we reached Pisa International Airport at around 10:20 in the morning, local time. The airport is a very small one, much smaller than Kamaraj Domestic Terminal back home at Chennai. It was too cold at Pisa.

There were 2 counters for clearing immigration formalities at the airport and all of us (7 guys) were standing in one of the queue. I noticed that the queue was moving very fast as the officer behind the counter was looking at the visa and just putting a seal over it.  As my turn for the counter came, I presented my Passport to the Immigration officer, where upon he looked at me up and down suspiciously and checked the same with an Ultraviolet scanner for its authenticity. He went to the Immigration officer in the other counter and asked something in Italia. He queried me something and unfortunately, I couldn't understand what he talked (He didn't understand English). Anyhow, I provided all the relevant documents and told him very clearly about my intention of coming to Italy (as a Tourist). Then, he retained my passport and gestured me to stand aside and proceeded with the next passenger. As the next passenger too happened to be an Indian (Hari Kumar), he retained that gentleman's passport too and asked him to wait. 

Till this time, I could take it that he is doing his duty. But similar thing happened for a couple (Indians), who were standing in the other queue. Then he completed the formalities for the other nationals, and turned to us. I thought that he would be scrutinising the visa further. But all he did was to simply put a seal over the visa and clear us. If he has just got this to do, he could have done that much earlier before clearing off the other nationals. Similar thing happened in the other counter too. It appeared to me that he did it deliberately giving precedence to Europeans over Indians (or rather Asians). I felt very much humiliated but we had no option but to go ahead.

After collecting our baggage and exchanging currency (Italian Lira is the currency in Italy and 1 GBP is equivalent to around 3100 Italian Liras.), we came out of the airport to look for some conveyance to Pisa's lone attraction 'The Leaning Tower of Pisa'. Unlike in Britain, Italy too had a left-handed driving system. We were not sure as which bus would take us to the place and so I walked up to two guys whom I thought would help me. I asked them the way to 'The Leaning Tower of Pisa', but to my surprise they drew a blank. It was no doubt a language problem and I was grossly wrong when I thought that they would recognise the key words. Even after my gestures like the tower didn't work out with them, we got hold of a Tourist guide from Harikumar and I looked for the Italian equivalent for the Leaning Tower, which happened to be 'Torro Pendante'. This time, they were able to direct us to a bus stop and wait for the bus number 'threy' (No. 3). Normally, we would expect that the tickets would be issued at the bus itself. To our agony, the driver cum conductor in the bus told that it is not so. Anyhow, we were already travelling and every moment, we were expecting us to be caught and pay the fine. Fortunately, it didn't happen so. In a few minutes, we were at 'the' place.

Enclosed on two sides by the old town walls, are the Piazza del Duomo, a cathedral, Torro Pendante (our good old Leaning Tower!) and a couple of other buildings with unrivalled beauty. The Leaning tower is the last of the buildings in the enclosure. The external look of the Cathedral built of white marble with transepts presents an esoteric appeal. We didn't get inside the cathedral since all of us were very keen on seeing the leaning tower first. There is said to be one beautiful bronze lamp in the cathedral, which is said to have given Galileo, the idea of the pendulum as it swung to and fro. (You might know, Pisa is the birthplace of Galileo. In fact, Pisa Airport is called 'Galilei International Airport'.)

After a couple of snaps, we went near the celebrated Leaning Tower, which was built between 1173 and 1350. The tower is closed to visitors now. It has been so since 1990. It is said that the architect of the tower was aware that the ground was waterlogged and hence not very stable. When the lower storeys had been built, it was found that the vertical axis was already inclining towards the Southeast. It was 180 years after the foundation stone had been laid, several storeys were built and the structure is what it looks now. There is a brief description of the history of the tower and the fact that it continues to incline in the rate of more than a millimetre every year. Various methods were and are being tried to stop the inclination and preserve the tower. Currently, steel ropes have been wrapped around the tower in order to stabilise it provisionally. The note further says that the current technology of compressing the ground in the north side of the tower has helped it in decreasing the inclination to some extent and they hope to remove the ropes by early 2002 after all the restoration.

As mentioned earlier, all the buildings in that area were simply beautiful. There was an understandable euphoria among us since we have visited one of the 7 wonders of the world (This is the second one for me after the Taj!). A happy Ramaprasad was seen wrapping the building in his newly bought Camcorder.

Meet you all in Florence next week .........

Picture courtesy: http://www.planetware.ca