It's Not the Eiffel...

May 21, 2010

When the children first learned about the 3-month trip to Europe, they were excited.  But they were also a bit concerned:  why couldn’t the trip include Paris?  All of their friends knew about Paris and the Eiffel Tower.  None of their friends knew anything about Geneva, Vienna, Budapest or Prague (which made those places seem way less cool). Our trip itinerary was already ambitious without including a trip to Paris, so I told them we would have to save that visit for another time.  And I soothed their naïve and premature disappointment with the reminder that at least we’d have Italy…and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  

For much of the trip, Reyna in particular seemed to be looking forward to this visit, although she admitted at one point that she always thought it was the Leaning Tower of Pizza.   (It is Italy, after all.  Sounds delicious!)  In fact, on our second night in Florence, Reyna had a meltdown and said she was ready for the trip to be over; she wanted to go home... until I reminded her that she would miss seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and she reluctantly decided she could make it through the remaining couple of weeks.  So, bottom line:  the Leaning Tower of Pisa was definitely on our must-see list, even though I’d been told by several different people that the Tower was the city’s only worthwhile sightseeing destination (an assertion which I’m sure would be hotly contested by the friendly Pisans).  

The day was clear and sunny, so we planned to make a quick stop in Pisa for the morning and then take an afternoon train to the nearby walled city of Lucca for some recreational bike-riding.  After an hour on the train from Florence, we took a city bus in Pisa to the Campo dei Miracola (“Field of Miracles”), as the Piazza del Duomo is commonly called.  Although the views of Pisa from the train station and bus weren't overly impressive, I found myself wishing we had planned for more time to explore the city… or at the very least, more time in the square to explore the other beautiful buildings to make their price of admission worthwhile.  As it was, we were on a schedule and our brief time in the city really only allowed us an hour and a half to wander and take our cheesy pictures, find Cade’s patch and other souvenirs, and sit briefly on the lawn to enjoy the setting before finding the right bus and heading back to the train station.  Shame.  There wasn’t even time to see if there was a yummy tower of pizza somewhere (I’m guessing yes?).

The Piazza is the ecclesiastical center of the city, housing a beautiful architectural ensemble of four white marble structures: the Romanesque Duomo (cathedral), the Campanile (bell tower, aka “Leaning Tower”), the striped Baptistery (oldest one in Italy) and the Camposanto (cemetery/holy field, said to be built on sacred earth shipped in from Golgatha outside of ancient Jerusalem).  Medieval city walls from the mid-1100’s line the square, as do dozens (seems like hundreds!) of stalls selling touristy souvenirs, which only slightly mar the stunning visual feast of contrasting green lawns and glowing white buildings under a blue sky.  Gorgeous.

I was a Communications major.  I must confess that I didn’t know the Leaning Tower of Pisa was part of a religious complex.  Oops.  Prior to our visit and my quick review of Pisa travel guide tips en route, I associated it only with its characteristic tilt and physicist Galileo’s legendary cannonball-dropping experiments (which, as it turns out, most likely never even happened, although the noted “Father of Modern Science” was a Pisan).  As an interesting sidenote, apparently the Tower is not the only building at the plaza that leans, since they are all built on the same unstable, sandy ground. But due to size (and perhaps better building foundations?), the Cathedral and the Baptistery don’t register the same off-kilter optical effect as the tower.  And as far as I could tell, no one calls them the Leaning Cathedral and Leaning Baptistry of Pisa.  J

The Tower is a gravity-defying wonder that leans by accident, not intentional design.  The circular Tower is only about 183 feet high (or 186 feet high, depending on which side you’re measuring!), but it leans vertically about 14 feet from center, and the lean grows by a millimeter or so each year. Construction of the tower began in 1173, but apparently as the third floor was completed, the tower’s tilt became markedly apparent and work was halted until the tower was finally completed in the second half of the 14^th century.  (The tower is slightly bent where the work resumed, in an attempt to compensate for the tilt and prevent its fall.)  In person, it is MAGNIFICENT but it looks even more precarious than in pictures… and although Cade was seriously disappointed, I was okay with the fact that the girls didn’t meet the minimum age requirement (10) for climbing the 294-step spiral staircase.

The general consensus is that it will one day topple in spite of the engineering world’s best collective efforts to stabilize it (the last intervention was completed in 2001).  But in the meantime, I can’t help but hope that its original architect has received word beyond the grave that his faulty engineering and construction was responsible for one of the most iconic landmarks in the world, and plays the starring role in Pisan tourism.  Vindication!