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Pisa |
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When we walked out of the train station, we saw a nice map. It showed us where to go to reach the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We weren't convinced that the damn thing leaned or not, but we were ready. It looked pretty close, so we set off on foot. This is an itty bitty church near a river we had to cross. This was about halfway to the Tower, which ended up being a 50-minute walk. Advisory- take a cab. But this church was cute, so we took a picture. And then we kept walking. We figured that any second we'd get there, we'd round the right corner and find a leaning tower... but man, it took a long time... |
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Then, suddenly, there it was! Kara's showing it off. Before ou ask why it doesn't look like its leaning, I'll answer. There are, in fact, multiple reasons. First off, it doesn't lean from every angle. If it leans to the south, then from south and north, it looks straight. From east and west, it leans in opposite directions. Also, its damn hard to take pictures of a leaning object- I'll present further proof as we go along, but here's the basic reason- we're taught that when taking pictures, you line up the subject so its straight in the picture. So, you line up the tower so its straight. Eventually you realize that this doesn't work (thanks to the magic of digital cameras) and begin to line up your camera with the ground. My evidence is below. |
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The Tower, in full. Soon after we arrived, we realized that they allow people to go up it, so we bought tickets. We couldn't go up for like 3 hours (its all timed out and only 30 people are allowed in at a time, for up to a half hour) so we had some time to kill. Luckily, we had cameras. |
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Looking straight up the tower (or leaning up? whatever). |
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The tower, a bird, and a statue of a myth. |
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Kara and I individually in front of the tower. You'll note that I suck at taking pictures, and made the tower go straight up as Kara "flew". You'll also note that Kara sucked at taking pictures, seeing as how the ground is absolutely crooked and I seem to be standing leaning as well (not on purpose). |
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The Pisa church. The tower was designed and built to mimic the style of the church. It was to be a bell tower, in the tradition of (perhaps) minarets only turned christian. But, the damn thing leaned. They stopped building it. They then tried again, building up the lower side to attempt to even it out (which, coincidentally, made it more uneven, due to extra weight). Turns out, there is some random foundation of ancient stuff underneath the high side, while the low side is on some sort of different earth with no foundation. Hmm. Just think, without that, no one would have ever heard of Pisa and its nondescript belltower. |
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Above- the church again from a different angle, showing the museum. The lower picture is the museum. We didn't enter either one. Suppose we just didn't care. |
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So we met some American dudes. They were older, and rather obnoxious, but we chatted a bit. They had some interesting information about some local traditions. They were from Scranton, PA. So, we asked them to take our picture in front of the Tower. We stood there and told them to position us to make sure we were in front of it. Turns out they're pretty dumb, because there's the tower way over to the left, and here's us, standing around like idiots. Sheesh. |
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So, we tried again. We met an American couple, and showed them the pic the dudes took, and asked them for help. They took this one, in which the lean of the tower is exaggerated, as evidenced by the ground. We took their picture as well, first with the tower not leaning at all, and then with the lean of it. Oops. Yay for digital cameras and not wasted film. |
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Well, our pictures had been taken, and we still had an hour to kill. I laid down in the grass and attempted to nap. The obnoxious Scranton dudes came by again and harassed us. Boo on Pennsylvania. But the grass was lovely. As you can see, I'm faking sleep because I'm laughing. Oh well. |
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As all good tourists know, you can't go to the Leaning Tower of Pisa and not take the requisite "Look at me! I'm holding up the Tower!" picture. We lined up our hands as best as we could, and they looked pretty damn good on the little digi cam screen. In the prints, it turns out we're a bit off, but oh well. Damn thing was heavy. |
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A close up of the myth statue. There were twins, Romulus and Remus, who were orphaned as infants, and placed into the Tiber River (Moses much?) and then raised by a wolf who suckled them (Mowgli in the Jungle Book much?) Depending on who you listen to, either Romulus died and Remus founded a city which he named after his brother, or Remus died and Romulus founded a city which he named after himself, or they both lived and founded seperate cities but only Romulus' amounted to much. The city? Rome. Don't ask me about Aeneas' influence in the matter. But this is Romulus and Remus on their wolf. |
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Yay so we finally got to climb! Kids under 12 weren't allowed to go up, and those under 18 had to hold their parents' hands. Weird. I soon found out why. The Tower is hollow in the middle, and you're walking up a spiral staircase that goes around the outside of the tower. Due to the lean of the tower, you sway back and forth and end up feeling seasick. You can see how centuries of feet walking up the thing has impacted the marble, and how where people walk is not in the center of the stones as you would expect, but swaying back and forth... yikes. And there are almost no windows, so its dark and stuffy and tight. Right before you get to the top, the staircase gets even tighter- if I were at all claustrophobic, I would have wanted to die, man. |
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That's how tight it was. I had 2 inches of room on either side of my shoulders. And I'm not a big person. |
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In case my photographic evidence (which, I'll admit, is lacking) hasn't convinced you quite yet, I took a picture on the top of the tower, from the low side towards the high side. Seriously, there's that big of a difference. Crazy. |
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Straight down the side of the tower towards the church. Yipes! |
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The view out over Pisa from atop the tower. A stadium, houses, and mountains. Lovely. |
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Kati and Kara over Tuscany. |
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As we left the Tower, I took one last picture. I had finally (almost) mastered the art of taking a picture of a leaning object. Kara and I hopped a taxi for 6 euro and made our train on time. Phew. |
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