For some reason, when we were planning our itinerary, we thought we could spend most of a day in the city of Pisa before returning to Florence. This despite the fact that the only attraction there really is the Leaning Tower and the cathedral and baptistry nearby. Fortunately, by the time we had reached Florence, I had been hearing countless raves from fellow travellers about this place called Cinque Terre, a set of five seaside villages set into the surrounding cliffside, creating some spectacular waterfront towns full of Italian charm. With some last minute research conducted on the hostel computer with free internet access, we were able to determine that we could take a train to Pisa, spend an hour an a half in the city, then continue on to La Spiezia, where we could purchase a train and hiking pass that would allow us free access to all trains and hiking trails through the five villages.

On this day, we departed from Florence at about 8:30 in the morning for a one-hour train ride that would take us to a city that was nearly completely destroyed by bombing during the Second World War, with the sole survivor of that bombing being its most famous landmark. Basically, that was a really complicated way of saying that the Leaning Tower was just about the only thing not blown to smithereens during World War II.

By 9:30, we had arrived in Pisa. We had ninety minutes to spend in the city, but with an estimated twenty minute walking time to the site each way, that really only left us with forty five minutes to spend at the site, since we wanted to return with a few minutes to spare to catch our next train. Knowing we were on a fixed schedule, Andrea, Jill, and I commenced on what the ladies calls a "mission walk," or basically purposefully marching toward our destination like troops on a mission. The pace was brisk, but I couldn't help but stop when I spotted a sign for the city bus system, which is apparently labelled after my family name.

That short stop aside, we made it to the Leaning Tower almost perfectly within my estimates--twenty minutes after we left Pisa Centrale train station. The sun was bright and extremely hazy, and unfortunately, it was to the west, which meant that the traditional poster photo of the Leaning Tower peaking out from behind the cathedral and baptistry would be backlit and most likely underexposed due to the high amounts of light shining into any camera pointed in that direction.

As I came to this realization, I also realized that my camera nerdiness might be taking over my tourist life.

The moment Andrea and Jill set eyes upon the Leaning Tower, they started giggling.

"It's so... tilted!!" they exclaimed in highly amused unison. And as they walked around the site and looked at the tower from different angles, they couldn't help but burst into occasional laughter over the absurdity of the it all. The tower was just plain crooked! What kind of an architectural monument was that??

They had a point, though. Until they actually see it in person, most people can't quite fathom exactly how skewed this tower is. Sure, everyone has seen photos, but as with any architectural destination, it takes being there and experiencing it in three dimensional space to geniunely understand its significance. In this case, the Leaning Tower presents a stark contrast to other, more traditional, more upright towers. The Leaning Tower seems perpetually off balance, as though it had one too many drinks at the architecture icons kegger and never quite sobered up. The angle of inclination looks quite extreme in person, and one can't help but wonder how the tower survived several centuries without actually collapsing.

Even isolating the Tower within itself produces a comical observation--the columns don't even line up parallel in a vertical direction! As the tower rises, the columns on each level slant a little bit more back toward the vertical. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is not even straight locally!

Of course, there's a reasonable explanation to this. The Leaning Tower pretty much started to lean immediately upon the commencement of construction, and as designers struggled to rectify the situation, one of their tactics was to build higher levels closer toward the vertical, so that at least some part of the tower would appear correct. Unfortunately, further construction simply amplified the tilting, and even changing the angle of the columns couldn't prevent the tower as a whole to slant noticeably.

Still, it's amusingly disconcerting to gaze upon what could have been a magnificent jewel of a tower and see that it isn't straight is any manner. And in a way, the Leaning Tower is still a jewel--perhaps because it leans!

There's a second observation I noted while at the tower site--one on people more than on architecture. It seems that anyone who visits the Leaning Tower must automatically take a photo showing some form of "interaction" with the tower. Most frequently, this means framing the camera shot to make a person appear to be pushing the tower over, toppling it with one, fell, double-handed swoop. Other manifestations of this shot include standing on the other side of the tower and holding it up, to "prevent the tower from falling," as well as tilting to the side to pantomine the tower. We saw countless instances of this, and even participated in the social spectacle ourselves. I'm not sure if this is a case of humans imitating others, or some pathological urge for human beings to connect with architecture, or a whimsical desire to just plain have fun. But I thought it was interesting how everyone participated in the same ritual with the same tower.

How amazing architecture can be to affect people in this way!

After our initial flurry of photos with the Leaning Tower, we took some time to wander the grounds and admire the baptistry and cathedral, which were also quite ornate and beautiful in their own right. All three of us felt the peculiar effects of looking at a slanted object for a length of time, however, because at some point in time, just about everything started to look like it was slanted in some way.  The cathedral walls appeared canted inward, while the stone reliefs on the baptistry seemed to fall a few degrees short of being perfectly vertical! None of us were sure whether or not this was the actual effects of bad soil displacement, or whether our minds were simply playing tricks on us by convulting our own visual axes, but we all agreed that the sensation was certainly disturbing our perception of direction all around us!

We also spent some browsing the souvenir stands and noting all the tourist memorabilia that slanted to recall the inclination of the tower. From coffee mugs to shot glasses to vases, there were plenty of wares that took advantage of Pisa's most famous connotation. And as we realized the time and hurried back to the train station to catch our train to La Spezia, I felt that this brief foray to Pisa had given us a new skew on how the world was. Pun intended.

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For more photos of Pisa, check out my Facebook photo albums:
PISA