17Apr2009: Day 326: Pisa (Italy)

Today we travelled to Pisa which was only just under an hour and a half away from Florence. When we first got there, we found a parking lot that also had a Lidl store (Aldi’s). We decided to stop in the store first and buy some water as we were out – again. We also picked up some other things such as pita-like bread, ham, cheese, some little boxes of orange juice for Makenna and some chips that taste like Munchos that are in the shape of bears also for Makenna.

We walked over to the area where the Leaning Tower of Pisa is along with a cathedral and baptistery. It was a bit windy, but a very picturesque day with the sun shining and white fluffy clouds. I was amazed at how much the tower is really leaning! In fact, it’s been “fixed” so that it’s not leaning as much as it was. We saw a brief film on how they tried to fix it starting in 1990 when things were getting critical. It took 10 years and a few tries at different things until they finally removed some soil underneath the side that it was leaning away from, so that it would start to settle the other way. When it was first built there was a river near by and the land was swampy. Only the first 3 floors were built and then it started to promptly sink and tilt. So it was abandoned for a while until another four tiers were built and it sank and tilted some more. So more time passed and then the bell tower at the top was finally put on.

Chris was nice enough to let me go up into the tower as a “gift” for taking care of Makenna and being a stay-at-home mom for the past year. I got some good video of the area of Pisa. It only had over 200 steps so it wasn’t too bad of a climb. As soon as you walked in you were tilted. Then you could feel the tilt more as you came down the steps in my opinion. I felt the different muscles in my legs getting a work out as the building shifted.

We bought a ticket that got us into 5 different things in the area—the baptistery, the cathedral, two museums, and a mausoleum. We went into the baptistery first. Makenna liked roaming around and especially the phone like devices that you could pay one Euro for to get a bit of history on the building. She would just pick it up and chat away like she was talking to someone—if we could only get her to talk like that when someone is really on the phone. What was really neat was that a guy went to the middle of the baptistery below the dome area and started singing. You could hear his echo on the dome and it sounded as if someone was singing back to him. He kept doing it so that he was then harmonizing with himself. It was the coolest thing to hear as if there were three people standing there singing and it was just him and his echo. Then I left to go up into the Tower and Chris sat with Makenna and actually got her to eat some ham and she absolutely loved the “bread” as she kept calling it. I was able to see them from the top of the tower. I came down and we went into the cathedral. In 1093, the first stone was laid to be build this Pisan Romanesque style church.

Then we went off to the mausoleum (aka The Camposanto ("Holy Field") or Monumental Cemetery). It was constructed in 1278 around sacred dirt brought back from Golgotha during the Crusades. It was later decorated with extensive frescoes, and was the burial place of the Pisan upper class for centuries.

A lot of the frescoes were completely destroyed when in 1944, American warplanes launched a major air attack against Pisa, which was still held by the Nazis. The wooden roof caught fire, its lead panels melted and the hot metal ran all over the frescoes. In repairing the remaining ones, they found sketches underneath called sinopie. They were used as a "preparatory sketch" for the artist to see how it would look before they painted the frescoes. This helped the people who took the frescoes down to see what they were supposed to look like. They took the sinopie & remaining frescoes and put them, into the Museo delle Sinopie, which we also visited.

There were again a lot of vendors all around trying to sell you things. There were guys even selling watches and belts. The hardest thing for me to resist was buying an Italian leather purse. I looked at quite a few but passed on them. If anyone knows me well, they know that I don’t carry a purse around too often. They tend to annoy me and the strap gets caught on everything it seems. Plus you just end up carrying more stuff around that I don’t tend to need and you end up carrying other people’s stuff – like your husband’s wallet. But for some reason, I love to buy purses. I don’t do it very often because it’s just a ridiculous waste of money.

We did stop back at Lidl’s again and picked up more water and pita bread as we could see Makenna really enjoyed it. We then packed up and headed to dinner – McDonalds – again. Out of all the fast food places, I like McDonalds the least but they have the chicken nuggets that Makenna will eat and we needed to get on the road to Rome.

When we were getting off the motorway, we had to stop and pay the toll and the machine says “ARIBA Dirche” and Makenna said, “Uh yeah” like one who doesn’t understand what was just said and you’re just saying “yeah” hoping that’s the right answer. Plus, when we got close to the hotel she wanted her movie changed and I had told her on the way a few times to let the one she was watching finish and then she could have another one. So this time, after she asked, she pointed her finger at me and said, “Let it finish.” I chuckled at that.