Pisa
We went to Pisa on a tour bus.
The land around the city is flatter than further inland, perhaps because it is built on the delta of
the river Arno. And the ancient-ness of
the city is not as apparent as you drive in as it is in other cities. There was no visible wall or dense city
blocks along the highway we followed to the Leaning Tower and the
Cathedral. When we got to the
destination, the cathedral and the tower and baptistry were surrounded by a
grassy field, unlike Florence or San Gimignano where there is only stone
underfoot. And, in Pisa, the Tower and
Cathedral do not feel as if they are part of the larger city, but feel
separated from it and isolated. These
are all just impressions from a 2 hour visit with very little knowledge of the
city’s history.
The tower is of course the site we all
came to see and therefore spent little time looking at the cathedral and
baptistry which are themselves wonders of architecture. We did walk around them, missing the details,
the interior, the history, until we reached the line to the tower itself where
we had to empty our pockets for the guard .
This was totally unexpected and I exposed several hundred Euros to a crowd
of people, something that I otherwise would never think of doing. The tower itself really does lean, a
lot. When you are inside you feel
disoriented because one is not accustomed to sizeable buildings pitching to one
side. The outside of the tower is a
colonnade, or a series of stacked colonnades. Then there is a double marble
wall with a spiral staircase winding up between them. When we started up, I began to panic with
solid marble to my left and right and people front and behind me. Every once and a while there was a small
opening in the wall to look out. But I
was sure for a minute that I would have to reverse course to keep from an
attack of claustrophobia. I took a deep
breath and went on. Italy is a
place of many stairs and much climbing.
The steps themselves, made of white marble, had hollow footsteps worn into
them. At the top were bells and tourists.
The inside of the tower is hollow. And running up one side of the inner wall is
a stainless steel channel. I wondered if
this had been used to try to straighten out the tower. I also noticed that, tucked between some
nearby buildings and behind a wall, there was a massive device that looked like
it had been used to pull the tower into a more plumb orientation. The steel on the inside must have been used
to add some tensile strength, otherwise pulling on the top might have toppled
the entire tower.
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