Pisa

During our recent break, Amy and I spent a couple of midweek days traveling. Our first stop was Pisa. Neither of us had ever been there before to visit. Our only contact was almost six years ago when we passed through on the train on our way back to Rome. This time we were with car and, after a bit of getting lost and following signs for parking that faded away, we found a free space on a residential street and walked a kilometer or so to the walled Centro Storico.

Pisa has any number of decent museums, it is Italy after all, and the University of Pisa is the finest in all of Italy (sorry Bologna and Roma). But, people come to Pisa to see one thing and one thing only, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Amy and I were no different. We, however, unlike most tourists, entered the Piazza del Duomo from the rear entrance nearer to the residential section of the city where we parked rather than the main entrance by the business district. That meant we were greeted immediately by the tower rather than having to run a gauntlet of kitsch selling shops. What can you say, it leans.

As a scientist, Pisa is a must-see stop for historical reasons if no other. It was here that Galileo formulated his ideas about freefall and did experiments with rolling objects on inclined planes which would later be co-opted into Newton’s first law of motion. Interestingly, historians of science are in fairly strong agreement that Galileo never did the famous public experiment of dropping objects with different masses from the tower to demonstrate that they reached the ground simultaneously rather than the heavier object arriving first. He definitely did experiments and reached the conclusion given. He may even have dropped things from the tower. There just isn’t evidence to suggest he hosted a grand public event.

The Piazza del Duomo contains three buildings set in a large open space which is entirely green at this time of year. The leaning tower is actually the bell tower of the duomo. There are some interesting carvings around the columns at the base including this one.

There is the duomo itself. When you enter as we did, you are facing the rear of the duomo as the bell tower was at the rear of the complex. When you make it to the front there are some nice doors of what is probably bronze.

The baptistery sits in front of the duomo. Here you have a radiant Amy with the baptistery in the background.

Finally, below is a picture of all three buildings to give you a perspective view. I tilted the camera slightly so that the tower is vertical and the rest of the picture slopes. Aren’t I clever!

It was a gray foreboding day in early April; showers began to fall as we were leaving. It is hardly peak tourist time. In fact, we were barely on the shoulder of tourist season. And yet, the piazza was packed with people creating long lines at everything. I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like during the heat of summer with thousands of your closest friends. All three of the buildings are open, for a hefty fee, including the tower itself. For quite awhile the tower was off limits but they managed to stabilize the building a decade or so ago and now allow small groups to visit and climb to the top. That was not to be. I had neither the patience to wait nor the desire to drop that much cash.