Slanty!

We took a day trip to  Pisa today!

Look it leans!

We had to start out really early because, as I mentioned, we accidentally bought bus tickets for seven am... at least we're practicing our Italian. The bus dropped us off at the airport, though, so then we had the adventure of finding our way from the there to the Piazza Dei Miracoli, where all the stuff to see is. We took a train to Pisa Centrale, got off, and eventually figured out which bus to take to get there. Aside from a few moments of guess work, that all actually went rather smoothly.
Getting to the piazza was exciting, especially our first glimpse of the tower (Rachel saw it first but I saw it best)! It was almost bizarre to be somewhere so iconic, as the leaning tower of Pisa is what many Americans think of as quintessential Italy (and hey, it really does lean). What I found even more surprising is how little credit is given to the other cool (more interesting) things in the Piazza: there's the Batistry, the Duomo, the Campo Santo, and two cool museums, and between all of them, LOTS of art (mostly of Jesus and Mary, of course). We bought the pass to go to all of these things as well as a ticket to climb the tower, so it was a full day of walking.
We did the tower first, which turned out to be a lot of fun. I was skeptical at first as to whether it would be worth the price, but I'm glad everyone wanted to do it. Walking up the marble stairs, it was strange to think how many people had done that very thing because the steps were so worn down  in the middle from all the different feet and all the friction over the years that there were large dips in the stairs! At the top, we had a great view and a great time taking pictures. Also, there are bells up there, which no ever told me. But I guess it was meant to be a bell tower. People just don't think that's as interesting as the fact that it's diagonal, I suppose. But I think bells are cool.  They were big and rusty green, and one had Jesus on it (I don't remember what the others had though).

At the top of the tower

Next we saw the Baptistry, which is big and round and houses an impressive pulpit sculpted by Nicola Pisano. It's always a bit odd for me to be in these Christian places because I can never keep track of which sects do what and so it takes me a while to firgure out exactly what everything is for.  I liked it though, the inside had the same stripped patten as the Duomo in Siena, although we aren't entirely sure what significance there is to that, I'll have to remember to look into it. When we were wandering around on the balcony admiring the stained glass a man who I suppose worked there stepped out into the middle of the room and started singing loudly and letting it echo and then harmonizing with his own voice. It was a solo duet! Very cool to hear, and Karen said it was meant to show off the building's acoustics. I can imagine what it would sound like with a whole choir.

Inside the Campo Santo

Second was the Campo Santo, which has some tombs and what not but most importantly had frescoes, lots and lots of frescoes. Except most (if not all) of these were missing parts because the Campo was bombed during WWII by the Americans since Italy was held by the Nazi's in 1944. The story goes that the Americans though that the leaning ower may have been full of weapons and used as observation, so they were supposed to bomb that, the but the pilot saw it ans was all, "hell no!" so he bombed the Campo instead. I'm glad that he spared the tower, but I can't imagine bombing anything in the Piazza, it's all so gorgeous. My first though when I heard about the bombing was "who would be so mean as to destory such lovely art?" but I guess it was us. I have to admit, it's so easy to assume that my side is always the good side (which technically it was, since they were fighting the Nazis), but I suppose that's the design of the public school education. Ler's teach patriotism! It's just odd to think that WE destroyed it. Not necessarily on purpose, but still. Some frescoes have been somewhat restored (it turns out that they can peel those things right off the wall), but many of them are just completely gone. It's funny to think that those medieval frescoes lasted through centuries just to be bombed off the walls.

I thought this statue was pretty (in the Campo Santo)

Next was the Duomo, the giant medieval cathedral. The inside of this was incredible, but so overwhelming! There were things to see absolutely everywhere: paintings, mosaics, sculptures, not the mention the building itself. My favorite were the mosaics, they were absolutely breathtaking. There was one huge one of Jesus, one of Mary, and both were huge and lovely and gold that looked absolutely brilliant when the light hit it. There was so much more in there but I can barely remember it all there was so much to look at!

More Campo Santo- the squares are all graves, ex-frescoes on the wall

After the Duomo we headed to the Sinop Mueseum, whcih was nice and small and housed the outline drawings of the frescoes from the Campto Santo, which they recovered after the bombing. This was fin to see, but I don't really have much to say about it.
Finally we made it to the last museum, the Muse dell'Opera del Duomo. This had some stuff about the other buildings and some other cool art and stuff, including drawings of the frescoes from before they were destroyed, which were cool to see, but for the most part nothing I found particularly special, but then, that could just be because it was the last stop of a long day.

Climbing the tower!

Baptisry in back, Duomo in the middle and the leaning tower last

Me and the bells no one told me about

View from the tower

Once we were done with the museums we found a bar for a glass of wine before catching a train back to Siena. We got dinner in Centro, which was fun and of course took forever. Delicious, though, I had barley soup followed by lamb and artichoke fritto. I have to say,  going to Pisa made me really appreciate Siena. The Piazza dei Miracoli was really cool, but the rest of Pisa was unimpressive. The streets were either overly touristy or kind of a dump, and it made me very aware of being an American tourist, which is fair but unpleasant. One of the big differences is that in Siena, the touristy parts are actually used by the locals-the piazza del Campo and the surrounding streets. It's easy to feel integrated. Also, this happens in Siena to but more so in Pisa: I say some thing in perfectly good Italian and get answered in English. I understand that most of the time people are trying to be helpful, and really are very nice, but I want to learn Italian damn it! Ah well, I usually just keep speaking Italian anyways.

Baptistery and Duomo from the top of the Tower