Day 5: Sewer camera rescue & the leaning tower of...what the hail? (25 miles)

Today was supposed to be a rest day in Lucca so I planned a leisurely tour around the city on my bike. Lucca town center is surrounded by an enormous 40 meter tall wall, which took 150 years to construct. The wall is now a park - strange, eh? People bike and run around the top of the wall. There's plenty of room because it's at least 40 ft wide at the top. The very best part of the ride was coming up on a vendor with a boom box playing my all time favorite song:



So you can pay to tour these gardens OR you can ride around the wall and look down upon them. I chose the latter experience.



In the following photo, look closely at the base of the wall for two people. This will give you a perspective on the size of these walls.



After lunch, I was walking to the B&B while looking at a few pictures in my camera. I accidently dropped my camera while viewing a photo. Unfortunately, I was standing on top of a sewer cap right when I dropped it...and, yeah, my camera fell through the slits in the sewer cap straight into the drain. Awesome! I tried to yank the drain cap off so I could grab it, but all I could do was fill my hands will a paste that would certainly rival all things vial for the award of most heinous substance. I returned to my hosts' house and told them my story. We had some laughs and then made a plan that involved a hanger, pole and a bit of tape. Dezi, my new Irish friend that runs a B&B with his wife Anna, helped me fish the camera out of the sewer. Pictured below is Dezi reenacting the rescue technique that I used to pull it out:



I then took a nap only to wake up psyched to do something. So...I randomly decided to ride my bike to Pisa to view the leaning tower. As you can see in the picture, there were some major storm clouds brewing, but I was hoping to beat the weather.





Unfortunately, I got smashed by a hail storm on my way home from the leaning tower of Pisa. A bunch of cars were stopped because the weather was so bad, but I couldn't stop...it was cold enough that I knew I'd start to get frigid if I didn't keep going. [By the way, I came prepared. I have rain gear and I don't ride in jeans if anyone was wondering. I just don't take photo's wearing spandex for safety sake.]