Italy Day 7 – It's True... the Tower Leans

I've always wondered if the Leaning Tower of Pisa is really leaning as much as it appears to lean in photos. Today I decided to find out. Yes, I drove for a total of six hours today just to see and climb the tower. I also planned to visit another town near Pisa but it ended up looking kind of boring and I was tired by the time I got there so I drove past and returned to Panicale. My flight leaves from Pisa next weekend but I didn't want to have the stress of leaving early and taking the chance of not making it to the tower or missing my flight if I ended up stuck in traffic or something. As weird as it is to think that I spent so much time on the road to visit a site that a couple of people have told me is quite boring, I don't regret the trip at all.

As my GPS guided me towards the Campo dei Miracoli, or Field of Miracles, I saw a huge wall ahead of me – about the height of a two or three story building. At a red light I finally glanced up above the wall and said out loud in a completely awestruck tone, “Oh wow.” I could see the top of the tower beyond the top of the wall. It's real.

I found a cheap parking space only two blocks from the campo (a small miracle), grabbed a sandwich as I walked to what I assumed was the entrance, and as I approached the wall I thought, “Where did the tower go? I thought it was in this area...”


And then I walked through the gate.

Campo dei Miracoli.
From left to right are the round Battistero (begun in 1152),
the Duomo (a cathedral begun in 1064),
and the Torre Pendente (begun in 1173).

I sat on a fence post just inside the gate to eat my lunch and enjoy the view in the photo above. One of the few perks about solo travel is that there's nobody to make me feel like I should be doing anything other than what I want to do. Don't get me wrong, there are many times I long for somebody to walk beside me and suggest the next thing to do, but there are some moments when I enjoy being alone. This afternoon as I ate my lunch, I loved the solitude and taking the time to just breathe and finally believe I'm really in Italy.



The tower was stunning and I'm thrilled that when I'm a crazy old woman (no, Lindsay, turning thirty next year doesn't count) I'll be able to tell people that I climbed to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The tower really leans as much as it appears to. Climbing the spiral staircase was an unbelievable experience. At one point I couldn't stop myself from grinning as I thought, “I can't believe I'm actually climbing this thing and it's seriously leaning!” The stairs are marble and heavily eroded from so many people traipsing up and down every day. The stairs spiral around the wall and I could see and feel the slope of the tower as I circled around each level. The view from the top was beautiful, but the most amazing thing was the knowledge that I was standing on such an iconic spot.

The well-worn stairs in the tower.
Pity the poor guy who used to climb over 300 steps to ring the bells every hour.

Me and the view from the top of the tower.

I tried to get this as straight as possible to show the angle of the tower when you're climbing the stairs.

The classic pose.
I helped a Chinese couple pose together and they shot this for me in return. We had a great time chatting and the husband seemed quite excited to use my camera since he's hoping to buy the same one soon.

Detail on the outside of the tower.

Detail on the outside of the tower.

Entrance to the duomo/cathedral was free (unlike the pricey tower climb) so I wandered around for a while after climbing the tower. I neared the altar area and realized that the gate was open to provide access. Seemed weird because normally you're not allowed in that area of cathedrals. It was roped off from the front aisle, but the open gate was off to the side. A young couple was also eyeing the altar area from the open gate and I grinned at them and said, “Should we go for it?” They laughed and agreed that it seemed odd that the gate was open and we most likely weren't supposed to be in that area, but we decided to go for it and get kicked out together if it came to that. The guards were hanging out just outside the entrance so we figured it would take a while to get caught. It was gorgeous and definitely worth the risk! There were incredible paintings and it was amazing to be able to get so close. A guard finally came up about five minutes later (after we had been snapping photos madly and a few others had joined us) and started barking at all of us in Italian to get out of that area. Turns out the gate was supposed to be closed and a big rope stretched beyond that area but we could honestly claim innocence because it was wide open when we arrived. The young couple and I exchanged big grins as we walked out of the area where we had sort of unknowingly trespassed... fun times.

In the foreground is the pulpit by Giovanni Pisano with the dome of the cathedral in the background with a fresco by Orazio Riminaldi.

The image of Christ in the bowl of the apse is a mosaic started by Francesco De Simone and finished by Cimabue. This is the area we explored before the guards found us.

Some paintings in the forbidden area: