Past POIs - Leaning Tower of Pisa [Pisa, Italy]

The Leaning Tower of Pisa or just Tower of Pisa is a free standing bell tower known for its poorly planned construction.  The Tower of Pisa is 56 metres (186 feet) tall and started to lean during construction due to poor foundation back in 1173 when construction first started.  It took roughly 200 years to complete due to various wars that took place during its construction.

The Tower of Pisa (Campanile) is one of four buildings which make up the Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles), the others being the cathedral (Duomo), the baptistery and the cemetery (Campo Santo).

It consists of 207 columns split among the 8 stories it has.  There are 15 arches at the base, 30 arches for the next 6 stories.  It weighs in at roughly 14,500 tons of white marble and has a 297 step spiral staircase that leads you to the top.  Originally, the lean was 5.5 degrees but this was corrected in recent years to about 4 degrees and said to be stable for the 200 years.

If you look closely, you will see that the upper floors are not level.  One side was built to try to compensate for the tilt.  From 1990 to 2001, corrective reconstruction was done on the building meaning that tourists were not allowed in.

It is situated in a town that you can get to by bus from Florence.  I feel that while we made the trip to see this neat building, there isn't really much else in the area to keep you here, so if you had to ask me if it was worth it, I think it is skippable (we did this as a day trip with Lucca).

Come back next Friday for another Past Point of Interest.

Italy 2013 - Day 11 (Pisa/Lucca)

The breakfast included at this B&B has been the most impressive so far in terms of what it is included. There are four types of dessert snacks, three types of individually wrapped snacks, coffee, tea, juice, bread, cereal and even fruit. The weird thing is that it takes place in a communal hallway but I guess it is a good way to get acquainted with your fellow guests. There are six rooms in this B&B.

Today we head for Pisa. Allison spent to morning looking at possible poses to do while there and there are some pretty crazy ones out there. I wonder how busy it will be today. You can buy train tickets to Pisa from the central station of Florence. It takes about one hour to get there and second class seats costs 7.90 euro at this time.

The leaning tower and the cathedral are about a 30 minute walk from the train station. Just follow all the tourist looking people. Once there I was somewhat disappointed by the height. Mind you it is talk just not as tall as expected. There is no lack of people trying to prop up or push over the tower. 

Interesting area. The cathedral is also very nice and free. If you wish to climb to tower it is currently 18 euro with quite a wait depending on what time you arrive. We spent about 2 hours here. You may end up spending more time here if you did ask the other tourist attractions.

Since it was still early we decided to go to Lucca. It is a small town with a big wall around the entire town. From Pisa it is a short 30 minute bus ride which costs 3 euro. You can rent bikes and ride around on the wall in about 30 minutes or walk for about 50. 3 euro to rent a bike for 1 hour.

Thanks Mike for teaching me how to ride a bike. My butt thanks you.

There is nothing that it's a must see here. It is a nice small little town that people visit. There are tours to this town from Florence.

We decided to have dinner in Lucca since it is a 1.5 hour train ride back to Florence from Lucca at Madame Butterfly. We ordered the carbonara, ravioli, and scallopine all of which were good. Dinner was 24.50 euro.