October 10th and 11th

October 10 - it was a runaround day but in some ways the most exciting. We at breakfast and then retrieved our car from the garage. We had made much more deliberate plans to exit the city than we had coming in, and made it out of town without any problem. We headed south to the small town of Montevarchi where the Prada label has its outlet store. They call it Space Outlet. We got to the store around 9:10, and found out that the store opened at 10:30. We needed some supplies and an extra suitcase to hold all of our booty, so we darted over to the Intercoop, which is Italy's version of the super Walmart. We made it back to the outlet by 10:15, and there were already 40 people in line. By the time the doors were opened, the crowd had grown to over 100 people. We learned that Prada is still Prada and most of the prices were still ridiculous. JD attentively helped me choose shoes for a while, and it took a while because I scoured the store for the "cheapest" boots I could find. I did find some that were at a price point that I would spend of a nice pair of normal leather boots. We then headed to the men's section. We finally checked out around 1:00 pm and got on the road.

We headed for Pisa, where we needed to be at 3:30 to pick up our tickets to climb the famous tower. GPS said we only needed 90 minutes, but we got turned around twice and then traffic was really bad around Pisa. We ended up getting to the parking area at 3:15. Pisa is nice because you can park just across the street from the Tower. We took a bunch of pictures, including the cheesy must haves of us "holding" up the tower. We then climbed up to the tower. The lean was very obvious when climbing the steps and when standing on top, but not so serious that your mobility was affected. We got some great pictures of the surrounding area. Once we were down, we grabbed sandwiches and ate them sitting on the steps of a statue at the cathedral. We then browsed the tourist stands for souvenirs and got on the road around 5:45 pm.

To see our pictures from the Prada outlet and Pisa, click on the photo of the tower:

Pisa and Prada

We then headed up to the Ligurian beach to of Lerici. We got off the autostrade and began taking smaller and smaller roads towards the sea. We eventually went through several tunnels and popped out right on the Ligurean Sea. Our hotel (Hotel San Terenzo) is one of the few on the sea side of the road along the sea, and our room had a good sized balcony overlooking the sea. There was also a beach club next door and the hotel had privileges there.
After dropping our bags, we strolled back into town to a gelateria, and were excited to learn that portions were bigger and prices lower than any other place we'd been to.

october 11 - This was basically a lazy beach day. We did hike up to the Castello di Lerici above town and were rewarded with some gorgeous views of Lerici and San Terenzo. We read for a while on our balcony and then went down to put our toes in the water. The water was too cold, so my toes were the only part of me that touched the water. JD decided to take the plunge. He stayed in just long enough to get a photo and then jumped out. We wanted to enjoy our balcony a little more and so we grabbed some takeout food and then watched the sunset over the mountains in front of us.

To see more photos from Lerici, click on the photo below:

Lerici