Italy – Pisa

In route from our two-day stop in Florence to our three days on the French Riviera we hopped off the train for few hours to see one of the items on Chris’s European bucket list – the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  Our typical plan for a stop like this would be to store our two carry-ons and at least on backpack at the luggage check at the train or bus station.  Unfortunately for us, the strike from the day before had unexpected carry-over… the luggage handlers decided they wanted an extra day off.  So, we were stuck dragging all our luggage through the city.  Uggh! 

*pulls out soap box, dusts it off, and climbs up*  If I haven’t mentioned it before, I’ll mention it here, and again later when I write about two future trips… the Europeans, and especially the Southern Europeans, really know how to mess up your travel plans with a strike.  One would think, in a country facing bankruptcy and bail-out from the European Union, the citizens would be happy just to have jobs.  Not the case.  It seems several hundred years of not having to do a darn thing except accept money for not actually doing anything at your government job has made people a bit ungrateful.  That’s fine Italy, Greece, and Portugal, I’m happy to take my tourist dollars elsewhere in the future and recommend that my friends to the same.  France, Switzerland, and England are quite lovely, and they've never left us stranded.  *climbs down, puts soap box away*

Luggage it tow, we walked through Pisa to the Piazza dei Miracoli.

The Leaning Tower is actually the bell tower for the Pisa Cathedral, and the Piazza Dei Miracoli is home to the cathedral, the bell tower and an absolutely amazing baptistery (more on that later).  The 183 foot tall tower began leaning almost as soon as construction started in 1173.  Corrections were attempted as construction progressed (if you look at the pictures, the lean is a little more pronounced at the bottom of the tower), but nothing was able to correct the lean completely.  Even today, after massive stabilization efforts, the tower is still almost 13 feet off center.

As luck would have it, no bags of any kind are allowed in the Leaning Tower, so we were able to store our luggage for the short amount of time we were actually climbing the tower.  Climbing the almost 300 steps to the top was no easy task.  The lean in the tower really messes with your balance (kind of like when you spin around in circles, then try to run).

I had one hand on each of the walls for most of the trip up and back down, just trying to make myself feel less like I was going to tip over.  The climb was worth it, however.  The views of the Tuscan countryside and Pisa were lovely.

After climbing back down the tower and reclaiming our bags, we made our way to the cathedral.  Nothing too spectacular to report from that stop, but our next stop, the baptistery, was amazing!!  The building is acoustically perfect, and the demonstration of those acoustics is reason enough to make a stop in Pisa.  Check it out!

Out of time, we made our way back to the train station for the very long train ride to the Riviera.  We were hoping to catch a few glimpses of the Cinque Terre on the way, but most of the train tracks were tunneled through the mountains.  We did catch a few seconds worth of brightly colored houses and crystal blue water near the town of Riomaggiore (we think).  We would have loved to make a stop here, but the region’s grand opening after a series of devastating landslides wasn't set to take place until a few weeks after our visit. 

At nearly midnight that evening, we finally arrived at our hotel in Nice, France, ready to tackle the Riviera the next morning!