Firenze and Pisa

It has been awhile since my last post....I apologize. Carl and Norma got into town on the 28th of February When Norah was 5weeks old and left yesterday. Dennis, Norah and I took them to see some of the sites here in Italy. We spent a few days in the Toscana (Tuscany) region, made a trip to Firenze (Florence) and Pisa (spelled and pronounced the same in both Italian and English). While in Firenze we decided to stay at the Sea Pines Lodge in Camp Darby, which made traveling to both Firenze on Tuesday and Pisa on Wednesday pretty nice. Firenze is where the Statue of David is on display as well as many beautiful paintings, amazing churches and the architecture is breathtaking. Daddy and Norah...

Daddy and Norah before getting ready for bed at Sea Pines
The Fuselier's talking and drinking some Shiraz before heading to bed. Toscana has wonderful wine, but we got in too late to by any locally so we had to make do with what we could get our hands on :)

Norma and Carl in the courtyard of the Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi. The Father's house is right where they are standing. Behind them there are several artifacts that date back to the 15th Century.
Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore

The Baptistery across from the Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral
Once inside you could take the stairs....all 433 of them to get to the top of the bell tower.
Here we are just getting started on the stairsThe entire way up the had little windows for air.......but what gorgeous views they hadCarl stopping to catch a breath!
There was a little catwalk to get to the 133 other steps to get to the top or head back down. The artwork was amazing. These pictures are from the top of the dome spanning across the Tuscan Region..........isn't it beautiful!!
On the way down........
Look at the cute car......Here's...................David
PISAThe Leaning Tower of Pisa

This day was the day I almost got arrested by the Polizia, and this is the entrance to the station where we had to sort everything out. Well, you have to pay to go up the tower and we told them four adults and one child. We went up to the tower for our tour and they would not let us in because evidently they didn't charge us for Norah. I said "Oh Sh*t" in Italian because we were going to miss the tour and why pay 15 euro for a 5 week old who was sleeping. The guy that was taking the tickets and the guy helping him apparently he took offense and called the Polizia on me because that was a bad word to say in public. His boss understood the miscommunication on both parts. One guy apologized and the other was sent home because he didn't want to accept my apology for the miscommunication. Now Norah will know I almost went to jail in Italy because I was sticking up for her.

The stairs inside the tower were made out of marble and were slippery in some spots.

The view from the 6th floor of the Tower
This is one of the bells atop of the Leaning TowerGoing up the last set of stairs......
We reached the top!!!Inside the BaptisteryInside the box were the bones of Priest........You can kind of make out the skull in this picture.