Pisa

On the top platform of the Leaning Tower, I’m about 170 feet above the Pisa Cathedral (on the right) and the Baptistery (left). This is where Galileo dropped two differently weighted cannonballs in the late 1500s to show that their speed was independent of their mass – the scientific law of free fall.

The Leaning Tower, the freestanding bell tower for the Pisa Cathedral, has an open platform on top for the bells, which can’t be rung for fear of resonance that could damage the tower. You don’t notice the tilt as much on top, even though one side is 2’ 8” higher than the other.

The circular stairs that lead up (and down) the Leaning Tower are well worn marble. As you climb, half of the time you are leaning into the wall and half of the time you are leaning out into the path of people going the opposite direction!

Unstable soil meant that the famous Leaning Tower started leaning even as it was being built; by 1990 it had grown to 5.5 degrees of tilt. After digging out 70 tons of dirt from under the higher side, the tower has stabilized at just under 4 degrees of tilt and visitors can climb it again.

Pisa’s Cathedral has sections of marble inlaid floors that create wonderful geometric patterns from the 11th century.

The luminous mosaic in the apse above the altar features Christ with Mary and St. John. It evokes the style of Byzantine and Norman churches, which the Pisans would have seen during their trading voyages to Sicily. It survived a fire in 1595 that damaged much of the cathedral.

Completed in 1092, Pisa’s striking cathedral mixes Romanesque and Islamic styles, including enormous granite columns taken from the mosque in Palermo, Sicily as spoils of war. The wooden ceiling adorned with gold leaf dates from the 17th century.

Unlike crowded Florence, Pisa has an open square around its cathedral, with the Baptistery (foreground) and bell tower (far right) creating an inviting space known as the “Square of Miracles.” Pisa was a prominent maritime republic in the 10th to 13th centuries before its defeat by rival Genoa in 1284.