Pisa Express

While visiting Florence, I took the opportunity one day to make the
short train journey to Pisa for the obvious reason. Apart from the
tower I knew nothing about Pisa, I hadn't even bothered to consult my
travel guide to see what else, if anything, was there. As far as I was
concerned, Pisa owed it's existence entirely to its tower and would
otherwise be totally inconsequential. Indeed, had the tower not leaned,
it would still be inconsequential; after all there must be plenty of
towns in Italy with towers that no-one's ever heard of.

I began to gather during the journey that, in all likelihood, Pisa
shared the river Arno with Florence, as we seemed to be trailing it all
the way. I'm afraid I don't have much time for the Arno, especially in
Florence. I usually love rivers that run through cities, they normally
enhance them and help to divide them into useful chunks and provide
lovely views from their bridges. The Arno in Florence does none of
these things; it's far too small and it looks like a dirty canal with
not enough water in it. The only benefit reaped from it is the Ponte
Vecchio, and the Florentines had the good sense to put houses on it so
that you can't actually see the river from the bridge - a wise
move.

I then began to wonder which direction Pisa lay in relation to
Florence, up river or down river. I tried to see whether the Arno
looked fatter or thinner, sometimes an indication, but it just seemed
to be hanging grimly on to its impression of a dirty canal with not
enough water in it. It was still early enough in the day for the sun to
be more east than anything else, so I gathered from this in a very
boy-scoutish way that we were heading west. We were heading towards the
Mediterranean! Was Pisa on the coast? Did it have a beach as well as a
tower? Would I be able to claim that I'd had a paddle in Pisa? I stared
hard at the approaching horizon to see if any glimpses of sea could be
discerned.

One of the peculiar truths about travelling by train is that whatever
you are going to see is always on the other side of the town from the
station you've chosen to arrive at. In Pisa's case you'd have thought
that they'd have put the station a little nearer to the tower. Perhaps
it's some sort of global agreement with taxi drivers. I went to
Dunfermline once which, to my surprise, had two stations. I chose the
one furthest from my hotel and had to get a taxi.

In this case, however, it was a nice day, not too hot, so a walk was
not such a bad prospect. I'd still had no sight of the Mediterranean,
so my initial excitement had waned and I'd temporarily suspended my
curiosity about whether Italian children play with buckets and spades.
What was worrying me more was that I'd had no sight of the tower. I
felt sure that as we approached the town it would be plainly visible in
all its glory, if not for miles, at least for a kilometre or two.
Surely, of all days, this wasn't the one when it had taken its final
lean and toppled over. I could already envisage the locals hacking and
selling off lumps of their own walls as souvenir pieces.

As I set off from the station, having purchased a little map and found
the station on it, I headed towards the little picture of the tower
which seemed to be situated in something called the Campo dei Miracoli.
The Field of Miracles, this sounded promising. But first I could see I
was going to have another encounter with the Arno. Would it be kinder
to Pisa than it was to Florence? It was, marginally, it's a bit wider
and the buildings are set further back from the banks to give it more
of a chance, but try as I might I could still only see a dirty canal
with not enough water in it.

Having crossed the bridge, the map directed me down a long and pleasant
residential street which still revealed nothing of the tower or indeed
any miracles, let alone a field full. Then finally, after about half a
mile, I turned the corner and there it was in all its glory, gleaming
whitish in the sun and leaning for all it was worth , apparently
straight towards me. I couldn't fail to notice that it was accompanied
by two other structures, a relatively smallish Duomo, and something
further down which resembled the dome of the Florence Duomo, but
without a cathedral beneath it, which turned out to be a baptistry. To
my horror, as I walked further round the piazza, I noticed that the
tower was being held up by several large cables. No-one had ever
mentioned this before, I always assumed that the tower leant of its own
accord, not with assistance from the local fire brigade.

Had I done my homework of course, I would have known that work was
going on to arrest and slightly reverse the lean to prevent the tower
from toppling. They weren't going to cure it altogether and make it
upright again though, as it presumably once had been. I suppose they'd
decided that 'the upright tower of Pisa' didn't have quite the same
ring about it and would probably upset the large number of souvenir
sellers who would be left with a frightening amount of redundant
miniatures.
Most disappointingly this meant that I would not be able to go up the
tower and conduct my own gravity experiment as Galileo had done,
dropping his objects of differing weights from the top to see how fast
they fell. I know I could have done this anywhere of course, but it's
somehow not the same hanging out of your own bedroom window, and as far
as I knew Galileo had never been to Hertfordshire. I therefore had to
content myself with wandering round the Field of Miracles (and a Couple
of Cables) trying to take photos from angles which hid the cables. I
gave up in the end, deciding that this was part of the tower's history
after all so I might as well make the most of it. For all I knew, when
they detached the cables the tower might well fall down and I would
have some of the last photos of it, so I went round and took some shots
with the cables prominently in the foreground, just in case.

I then went into the Duomo, just a matter of yards away, to see what it
had to offer. I have to say that it is very beautiful inside and it
would be a great pity to visit Pisa and not see it. The frescoes and
carvings are quite spectacular but it doesn't overwhelm you in the way
that the Florence Duomo does. I sat down for a while, just admiring the
surroundings and enjoying a bit of peace, away from the tourist burble.
Suddenly there was an almighty crash which sounded like the dome was
caving in and I leapt to my feet and headed to the door as quickly as I
could. Had the tower finally succumbed despite its additional support?
When I reached the door I discovered that it was now absolutely
pounding with rain and that a thunderstorm had slipped out from the
hills and was now directly over the town.

I decided to brave the downpour and try to find somewhere for lunch. I
ran blindly down to the other end of the now very soggy Field of
Miracles, through an archway and by pure luck, I thought, straight into
a caf?. It was a self service affair, with various dishes laid out
behind a glass counter on hotplates. I didn't really have an appetite
for the huge mounds of pasta based meals on offer, so I opted for a
medium sized pizza which seemed to be calling to me. In fact the storm
had driven me to the worst pizza in Italy. The poor thing, which had
looked quite tasty and shiny behind the glass, was dry, tasteless and
lukewarm, the three elements guaranteed to detract from a lunch. I
wondered if they produced them specially for English people because
they think we like them like that, I could find no other explanation,
as surely no Italian would have eaten it. At least I had a lukecold can
of coke to wash it down with.

After this highly uncharacteristically bad Italian lunch, I returned to
investigate some more of the architecture. I had a quick look in the
baptistry, but it didn't seem to have any of the atmosphere of the
Duomo, though the pulpit from where the baptising presumably takes
place was quite impressive, being a sort of stand-alone affair. I then
discovered, lying back behind the other buildings, a great, long
structure which ran the whole length of the piazza. I don't know what I
was expecting when I entered it, but I don't really expect cemeteries
to look like this.

It's a big oblong shaped set of cloisters really, open-air and with a
smaller oblong of garden in the middle round which the cloisters
cloister. All the 'graves' as such are presumably below the engraved
paving stones on which you walk, which is disconcerting to say the
least. The place has a very strange atmosphere and was apparently
bombed during WW2, and not surprisingly it's all rather dilapidated. It
was worth visiting and rewarding for its sheer peculiarity, but I
didn't stay too long as I could feel a touch of melancholy creeping up
on me - or perhaps it was just the pizza.

I then made my way slowly back up the other side of the piazza which is
lined much more cheerfully with gift shops and stalls, managing to
stave off the almost irresistible urge to buy one of the little leaning
models. I also had a look round the museum which contains all the bits
and pieces, mostly Roman, that they've found in the area. It has a
great walled garden which has a wonderful view of, inevitably, the
tower.

As I walked slowly back through the town, I realised that Pisa is
actually a very nice place. It's neat and clean and well laid out and
its tourist bit is all neatly stacked in one square - the Campo dei
Miracoli is one big show-off really - and the rest of the town can get
on with things undisturbed, save for the little snake of tourists
coming and going from the station. It must be a great place to live,
though I'm still not sure where or whether there is a beach. Apparently
the sea has receded over the years, but I never found out how far and
whether that included low tide.
There was one final surprise, but I didn't find out about it until I
was safely back in Florence and discovered a whole six pages devoted to
Pisa in my guide. I had walked right by the tiny church known as Santa
Maria della Spina without noticing it, I think I was too busy
chastising the Arno. It was allegedly built to house an unusual relic:
a thorn preserved from the Crown of Thorns which Christ wore on his way
to crucifixion. And I missed it!
I now have a reason to return next time I'm passing, but I don't think
I really need one. And of course I still have my gravity experiment to
conduct now that the tower is open again. Perhaps I'll use a pizza or
two.