The leaning tower of Piza and Lucca

After leaving the coast of Italy we headed south (and slightly inland ) to see one of Italy’s most recognisable monuments – The leaning Tower of Piza (or Tore Pendente as it is actually called).

Piza itself wasn’t that special apart from the university where Gallileo taught at, but behind the old city walls the monuments were impressive. We started with lunch leaving Mulder with a view of the tower from outside the city wall – we were pleased to find the parking was free!

Mulder's great sightseeing position!

From here a very short walk  into the Campo dei Miracoli – Field of Miracles, a very pretty square housing the cathedral, baptistery (small round building they build at the end of cathedrals) and of course the tower!

The tower

We found some space on the grass to take the montage of leaning and pushing photos, but it wasn’t long before we were moved on by Police. Turns out the chains around the lawn area and signs saying do not walk on the grass mean you cant go in... Oh well everyone else was doing it.

OK get ready for the photo montage... :)

We had to make the big decision of whether to pay 15€to climb the tower or not, and after much debate we decided the spectacle was more to look at the tower rather than to look out from it. Plus we thought the view of Piza really wasn’t that spectacular anyway.

The tower was actually the town’s bell tower that for various reasons since its commencement in 1173 until 1990 managed to lean more than 5.5deg beyond what engineers thought would bring it crashing down. When I visited in 1997 you couldn’t climb it but in 1998 they did some fancy reinforcing and counterbalancing and now people can go up in groups of 40 or so.

So instead of climbing it as i said we opted for gazing and gelati (or really sorbet this time – limone and melone in case you were wondering) plus some shopping in the souvenir shops.

One more for the montage - this time with the ever important Gelati

After Piza we moved on to the little town of Lucca. Another walled city – although you can walk and cycle on top of these walls which are more like hills when you approach them from the inside.

Dave with the walls of Lucca

We visited the Cattedral di San Martino outside of which an orchestra were playing a tribute to Opera composer Puccini – this provided the perfect Italian mood music.

We wandered the narrow but surprisingly busy shopping streets to end up at the Piazza Antifeatro (circular Piazza you see on all of the postcards of Lucca). Finally it was time to return to Mulder , but the challenge was “how do we get out of this place?” We managed to get lost in the labyrinth of streets with the problem being we didn’t want to turn into anything too narrow driving a Toyota Tarago. After making 3 laps of the same road we eventually followed an Italian driver out – Jim provided no help whatsoever!

Piazza Antifeatro - looks more impressive from above

Luckily there was a campground nearby so we could checkin and settle ourselves down again – wine helped.