Touring Italy — A Piece of Pisa
Working our way back up Italy to Venice, the next geographically sound city would have been Florence. However, we really wanted to see the tower of Pisa before continuing so we decided to detour slightly by going up the Italian West coast straight from Rome. This was going to be one-night stay that turned out to be the perfect length of time for this city.
You see, there aren’t many attractions in Pisa and the main four are all located in the same area — the Piazza dei Miracoli (the Square of Miracles). Naming these four great structures in the order I saw them, they are: the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Pisa Cathedral, the Pisa Baptistry and the Camposanto Monumentale (Monumental Cemetery). It’s best to book all of these on the official website, particularly if you plan on climbing the Leaning Tower since spots will not be available the day of.
We made our way to the main attraction, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but not before assuming the classic leaning tower pose.
As we waited to climb the near 300 steps to the top, a guide gathered us in the main floor and gave us a brief rundown on the history of this building. Apparently due to a measly 3 metre foundation, the tower of Pisa began leaning by only the 2nd floor. The builders essentially abandoned the project for nearly 100 years in its unfinished state. When it was finally picked up again in 1272, the engineers built one side slightly taller than the other, creating a slight curve to the overall structure, as well as using counterweights to balance the tower. Now, after a period of strengthening, the tower leans by only 4 degrees but the illusion it gives makes it appear to lean far more than that.
When climbing the Tower of Pisa, you will notice a bit of an incline. Nothing extremely obvious but there’s a little bit of gravity against you as you wind around and around the stairs to the top.
Pisa is surrounded by mountains to the North-East and the Mediterranean to the West, making for some great sight-seeing from up here. You can also see the city’s stadium!
You can climb one additional floor to be on the same level as the bell-chamber. The seven bells located on this level each represent a note of the musical major scale.
About a week before writing this blog, it was brought to my attention that during World War II, the Germans were using the Tower of Pisa as an observation post. Upon a U.S. sergeant going to Pisa to verify, he was so awestruck by the tower’s beauty that he called off an airstrike to destroy this outpost. Can you really blame him?
Next was the Pisa Cathedral. Mighty impressive on the outside…
…but even more stunning indoors! The gold, coffer ceiling in particular is marvelous.
Directly across the front entrance of the cathedral is the Pisa Baptistry. This building was built specifically for, you guessed it, baptism. For its single purpose use, this is an extraordinarily large baptistery; the largest in Italy as a matter of fact!
While the interior is rather empty, being surrounded by the tall, marble walls was quite remarkable. There’s a rather strong echo as a result.
There are two floors to this baptistry with a narrow staircase that curls up the interior wall, similar to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
The view from the second level brings to attention the octagonal pattern arranged on the first floor. It also makes for a better view of the baptistry.
From the second level, you can see the Pisa Cathedral from a really good angle. One super interesting thing I want to point out is that a lot of structures in Pisa lean; the soil is very damp and causes things to sink slightly. While the most famous is clearly the tower, even this baptistry has a bit of an angle to it. This can be illustrated by the shadow of the dome’s top point not aligning to the centre of the cathedral’s front doors. If you were to draw a line following the point upward, it would be a degree or two off from the top of the cathedral. This was a really cool catch when reviewing my photos!
The final attraction to visit in the Square of Miracles is the Monumental Cemetery. The cemetery, while very atypical from a regular burial ground, is mostly enclosed. When it does open up to the main cemetery courtyard, however, it’s quite a sight!
This cemetery gives off more of a church feel than anything else.
That concludes the day trip in Pisa; an excellent detour city! I was very impressed with the look and feel of the town, particularly in the friendliness and cleanliness it provided. You can tell that the residents here take pride in their main square, even if it really is all they have to offer tourists. I really enjoyed my time here and would highly recommend it to my fellow travellers as a great one-day adventure!
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This blog entry is part of the publication Robert Cekan Travels & was originally written on August 14, 2014
Robert Cekan is a young entrepreneur and proud Hamiltonian. He is the founder of the Hamilton discovery website True Resident, as well as Cekan Group, a property management group. He is also a Hamilton REALTOR® with Ambitious Realty Advisors Inc., Brokerage and an active blogger.
For all of Robert’s projects, please visit robertcekan.com
