Posting about Pisa - Oregon Family pushes Leaning Tower to Vertical

I know I promised Venice..

How is it that I forgot about our trip to Pisa? Well I didn't I just kept thinking I would have downloaded the pictures from the trip by now. I have my pictures which are singularly boring, but the kids took some fun ones of Pisa and I wanted to take them off of their camera. In order for that to happen the camera has to be in the house and have a battery that works. For the last week it's been neither. So you will have to take my word for it.

I love the dork factor of the premise that you will go to Pisa and take a picture from a great angle which actually appears as though you have one hand on a miniaturized tower pushing it back up. We are not the only dorks to have wandered off of Dork Mountain who attempt this. As we wait to ascend the tower there is an International contingent of dorks who are in various combinations and configurations of this same photo. Kudos to the gentleman who is laying on his back using his feet.
While I steer the girls to a nice patch of sidewalk to avoid the "It is not permitted to walk on the grass" signs 40 other people stomp on this forbidden ground in search of the best shot.

I give up trying to prevent my daughters from starting an international incident and let them wander onto the green. No violations are issued.

The area immediately surrounding the tower is amazing. The word verdant had to have been invented for the grass which surrounds the Baptistry, Cathedral and Tower. Surrounding the grass is a medieval fortified wall. Aside from the Crappa Touristica carts and the hundreds of digital cameras, the place is eerily unchanged.

Once up inside the tower the level of craftsmanship is mind boggling, as is the smallness of everything. Danielle seems to pass through the archways standing straight up, the rest of us bend a little at the waist. The treads of each step are worn from the millions of feet that have climbed here. We lean first toward the center of the tower and then away as we spiral up, and up and up. At the top we are rewarded with a view of the Carrara marble fields (yep that Carrara marble) and the snow covered Apennines behind them. The view from the top the same as it was hundreds of years ago.

On the way back to the train station, I have a feeling of deja vu. The area we pass through, a colonnade with shops and restaurants is the site of a lunch almost thirty years ago on my first visit to Pisa. It's one of my sharpest memories of the previous trip, but I'm not sure why.

Next post I promise will be Venice