Day 9

Ciao!

Today I woke up at 7:30, ate a banana with peanut butter, and left with everyone to go to Forno, the bakery on the corner. I got a donut for breakfast and a blueberry muffin for the train. Have you ever had a hot and fresh donut from Krispy Kreme or some other donut shop? Well that's what this donut was like, only it had been out of the oven for probably an hour or two. It melted in my mouth and it was so soft and sugary and it was soooo perfect. I ate that on our walk to the piazza in front of the Baptistery to meet Dr. Zaho before walking to the train station. After about 15 minutes of people getting breakfast and using the bathroom, we hopped on the train to Pisa. Geoff, Katia, Chelsea, and I sat together and just talked and laughed for the hour long ride.

We got to Pisa and immediately hopped on a bus to get us to the Piazza de Miracoli, the location of the cathedral, baptistry, campanile, and Campo Santo of Pisa. As we approached the piazza on the bus, Dr. Zaho told us to jump off and keep up with her. We arrived, hopped off, and she took off. She walks SO fast. We were warned of this, but we were still surprised. We passed through a massive gate in a humongous medieval wall that encompasses the piazza and were on our way to the ticket center to get tickets to everything I mentioned above. After about 10 minutes of confusion, we all had tickets to climb the campanile. A campanile is a tower with bells on top. This one is leaning 14.9' off center. So it's a leaning tower in Pisa. I climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa. That is, after we booked it over to the room where we check our bags (for free) and used the bathroom (for 50 cents, ugh). We were set to climb at 11:15; when we walked in, we were in the center of the interior, essentially an 8-story tall hollow cylinder. There was a huge group of middle school kids there to walk up with us and a woman who gave us a quick description of the history of the tower.

It was completed in 1173, nearly 100 years after construction began. Part of the way in, they realized the tower was sinking into the marshy land they built it on top of. So once they got to the top they made the columns taller on the side that was sinking in to try to kind of correct it. Great solution, right?

Anyway, we went to the steps right away to be able to get ahead of those punk kids. Climbing it was pretty hilarious. As we walked up these old, worn down marble steps in a circular motion, I found myself leaning with the tower. As we got to the sinking side, I walked on the left side of the steps; as we climbed up the opposite side, I was walking towards the interior. It made me laugh a lot. And I also realized that the steps were worn down in that pattern, adding to the effect. Over 200 steps later, we made it to the first tier!

There are 3 tiers that are technically accessible to people, though we were only allowed onto the lower 2. Despite that, it was amazing. The first stop was surrounded by beautiful columns that were all topped with different capitals. The view was obviously amazing. There were mountains far off in the distance with the city and piazza in close proximity. So cool! We then climbed up a very narrow, slippery, worn down spiral marble staircase to the second tier. This one was surrounded by essentially a few rows of steps surrounding the central area with 7 huge brass bells that were tuned to the 7 different tones. It was awesome and the weather was beautiful, so we just sat up there enjoying the view until we were told we had to go down. There was one time when I went into the central area with the bells alone, but all the kids were sitting in there and I felt so judged and scrutinized by their little French eyes. Ugh. Kids.

Once we got down we all got our bags, used the bathroom, and sat in front of the tower to eat snacks. I ate half an avocado with a plastic fork; no shame. We then ran into the museum to see a few things, including a spectacular view of the tower from a closed garden with a big patch of green grass, some trees, and a wall of roses. It was gorgeous and so relaxing to get away from the big buzz of tourists.

After that we ran over to the Baptistery to look at Nicola Pisano's pulpit and listen to a man sing into the dome (shaped like a bell) from the center of the space, only to have it echo back in beautiful harmonies.  Then we went over to the Campo Santo to walk around and look at Roman sarcophagi. They were all incredible and elaborately carved tombs shipped in from Rome in medieval times. We also saw some restored frescoes and a video on how they were saved. Man, it's crazy. They apply chemicals and gauze to it and literally just peel it off the wall. They roll it like a rug. It's wild. After we left that room, we headed straight for the cathedral. The cathedral was just as huge as the rest, but about 300 years older (built sometime in the 11th century). It had another half dome with a gold mosaic image of Christ and a lot of frescoes and giant paintings on the walls; the ceiling was all gold leaf floral design. It's funny that I'm comparing all of these elements to things I've seen this past week from a span of hundreds of years in one city. Italy and Florence and art history in general are just mind-blowing.

After we left the cathedral we walked around a bit to buy some souvenirs and take some pictures, then we hopped on the bus, got on the train, and made our way back to Florence. On the train back, Katia and I sat with Dr. Zaho while everyone else slept. She's so fascinating and her life is awesome. She also helped a couple from Hong Kong figure out how to avoid fines on trains, one of which they sort of had to pay for not stamping their own ticket with the date. When we got to Florence, we said bye to that couple (who was on their "pre-honeymoon") and walked back to our apartments. Katia, Geoff, and I shared spinach tortellini and I ate a bunch of cookies and Ritz crackers and that was my night. Italy is awesome.

Bye!!