The Leaning Tower of Pisa!!

I went to the leaning tower of Pisa yesterday!! Pisa itself is a very small town, with the old city walls still standing. The only thing to see there, actually, is the tower and the basilica next door - which is gorgeous. The leaning tower is actually the bell tower for this Cathedral. So first we wound our way through the curvy little streets of Pisa:



And on the way, for no explainable reason whatsoever, we came across a store filled with NYU pride:



And finally caught our first disorienting view of the tower:



And of course here are the pictures you all actually want to see:





The bottom part is not only leaning but also sinking into the ground:







I actually didn't realize this was a belltower, so the church next door was an unexpected surprise. The inside was really beautiful:



And they also had the mummified body of Saint Ranieri, the patron saint of Pisa, and the body of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII. We aren't sure which one this is:



The tower was begun in 1173. The tower (and surrounding structures) are built on a dried up river bed, and even while they were building the base of the structure it started to lean. (So by 1200, it was already called the leaning tower of Pisa.) They were a little concerned about this and so (wisely) stopped working on it. They went to war a few times and when they could afford to would come back and add more to it. Once they got to the top of the third tier, it was pretty dramatically leaning and if you'll notice, the 4th, 5th, and 6th tiers are actually build at a slightly more verticle angle. They tried to kind of correct the lean by tilting the top part of it back in the right direction. Mussolini ordered that it be righted (which is not actuallly possible since mid-construction they bent it) so they poured a bunch on concrete in the base of it, which actually made it sink way more into the ground, and tilt more. Smart. Recently a British Engineer decided maybe instead of adding weight to the already unstable ground underneath, they should just take ground away from the higher side of the building. Which worked. Or would have worked, except now the tower is to famous for leaning that Pisans were afraid tourists wouldn't come if they righted it, so instead they just moved it back to where it was in 1938 - still leaning, but not as dangerously.

The Cathedral next door is also leaning, but they don't like to talk about that:




I really can't find any information on the obvious architectural glitches of the Basilica. I actually think they try to keep it quiet, haha. But if you look carefully at that wall, you can see that the first four or five pillars seem to be newer, or at least made from a different material, and that the space between the top of the decorative arch and the roofline of that out section is increased by one brick for each column added to the original wall. My inferrence is that the building began to lean so they added on to the front so that at least the front facade would be straight. It's hard to show this in the pictures, but they entire thing is just a little - off. The dome at the top, for example, isn't quite round, and the base isn't quite straight. The inside is highly decorated so it was difficult to see if any of this was evident inside. They do, however, have some inscriptions that are carved into the marble - upside down. So, their masons couldn't read what they were carving. I can think of few architectural blunders that compare.



Also, if you look at the stipes of different color marble in the second level of windows, you can see that they just sporatically started putting stripes in. They seem to have tried to correct the lean of the base, but were still hindered by the roofline (which is straight from one end to another) so I think they made the bottom area taller as they added on, but had to squish the second level in order to make all these changed fit under the same roof. Oh my goodness.

This thing seems to be straight:




That's the baptistry.

The very top of the tower is built at an even more "corrected" angle: I can't find any infomation on it now but I've heard said that there are seven steps on one side and four steps on the other. It seems to be a newer style, as well, but perhaps it was planned that way.



Then we hit a little cafe with a view of the tower:


And hey, if I move my camera this way, it looks kinda straight!



And finally we walked back to the train station to head home.



The end!

[Travel info: Definitely a day trip from Florence, not a spend-the-night destination. Pisa is extremely small, and all that there is to be seen there is the leaning tower, the basilica, the baptistry, and the cemetary. All of these are grouped together on one city square called the feild of miracles and it is a ten minute straight walk from the train station. We simply headed to the train station (the Florence Santa Maria Novella station) around 1pm, bought the tickets when we got there (5.20 euros one way, 10.40 total round trip) and hopped on the train. Trains leave every hour until evening. We didn't pay to go in the cemetary or the baptistry, but to walk into the Basilica is free. The Tower is 17 euros to climb - we passed, because frankly it's only eight stories high, and hell, I live on the 12th floor in New York, so the height was kind of no big deal. And the view would be of Pisa, which is kind of no big deal since you'd be standing on the most important part of the skyline. It's a dimly lit eight story walk up a dreadfully leaning staircase with a big empty shaft in the middle. I would say stay on the ground. We ate at a little cafe looking at the tower. Cheap, lousy food, great view. Polite staff. Can't remember the name but honestly Pisa is so small you'd probably see it and recognize it from these photos. I would say get pizza. You can't really go wrong with pizza. Even if they bring you the wrong kind, which they did, haha. We spend four hours there, saw everything, had a leisurely meal, and again just walked to the train station and got tickets when we got there.]