Leaning in PISA

Today we started an early adventure to Pisa for a planned excursion. The bus ride out of Volterra was (once again) a tummy twister, but after we got out of the mountains the ride was pretty smooth. The sights were beautiful as always and it was nice to see shopping centers and small towns on the ride. It sort of reminded me of home, sweet home. We arrived in Pisa in about 1.5 hours and had the entire day to explore. When we walked through the walls of Pisa I could see it just past the Duomo and cathedral - The Leaning Tower of Pisa... boy was it leaning! I always thought it would be a very slight lean, but I was completely wrong. Up close it isn't as evident but from far away (and in comparison to the buildings around it) it is REALLY leaning. I must admit though, I really shocked that it was much smaller then I had imagined it. It's simply a bell tower - nothing fancy or large. I'm not sure why I envisioned it any differently.

The first thing we did was pick up our reserved tickets for the tower. I was pleasantly suprised to learn that guests can now climb up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This wasn't always the case. It is only recently that they have decided it was safe for tourists to climb. Apparently civil engineers have been working on it constantly to ensure its preservation and safety. The limitation to this is that only a certain amount of people are allowed up at any said time. Climbing to the top was crazyyyyyyy! From the moment you go through the door (which was really horizontal), you can instantly feel the lean of the tower. The steps were brutal because of this factor. Some points felt as if you weren't even climbing, while others required lots of extra energy. The steps were also slippery (all marble) so it made it that much scarier working our way up (and even worse coming back down)!

The view at the top was gorgeous... I've been atop many of Italy's panoramic buildings, but the idea of standing upon a famous leaning building (where even the famous Galileo once stood) looking at all 360 degrees of Pisa just made the experience unparalled to the others for me. It was really cool to be a part of the group that went up at noon because we got an extra treat when the bells started chiming at the hour.

Of course we took our typical "holding up the tower" and "pushing the tower over" pictures like cheesy tourists, but after that we did try to explore the area. It was really great that I enjoyed the tower because the rest of Pisa wasn't as historically appealing to me, personally. We got to see the Duomo and the cathedral standing right near the tower - but really...how many duomo's can you see in one trip to Italia!? I know it may sound crazy, but the horror of walking up 463 steps in Florence really turned me off the idea of voyaging up any more Duomo's.

We did end up finding AMAZING gelati and muching a lot during the day... but other than eating and drinking we didn't do much else. For my big lunch I had a tortellini in Vegetable sauce - it was spicy and satisfying. :) Since we had adequate time to do more than neccessary in Pisa, we decided to go check out the University campus. Since we are technically studying at the SIAF center (a remote University of Pisa campus), it was interesting to see the real deal. I even bought an "official" t-shirt. I don't think I've seen that many people our age since we've been here.

We headed back to Volterra at 6pm and I slept like a little baby on the bus.