Tuscany, Italy

Pisa

There is more to Pisa than the leaning tower, but growing weary near the end of our trip, we focussed on the Campo di Miracoli, a wonderful complex comprising a cathedral, a baptistery, a cemetery and the leaning tower itself. It's now again possible to climb to the top of the tower (15 Euro), although access is restricted to small groups visiting half an hour, each having it's own timeslot.

An interesting text by the Discovery Channel (edited):

Italy's Pisa Tower Declared Stable By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News Aug. 24, 2004
Reporting on the present conditions of the monument at the 32nd World Geological Conference in Florence, Italy, Turin University's Michele Jamiolkowski, president of the committee for the protection of the tower, said that the famous tilt has been finally halted. Straightened by half a degree, the monument has stabilized for the first time in more than eight centuries. "Apart from seasonal, cyclic movements, the tower has been basically motionless since September 2003. We believe geotechnical stabilization has been achieved". Cyclic displacements include the tower heating up at sunrise and slightly leaning to the west before returning to the original position. The restoration has made the tower safe for the next 300 years, an achievement unimaginable 12 years ago, when the monument was so far off of perpendicular that it risked collapsing. The soft, sandy subsoil is what has given the 179-foot tower its lean since Bonanno Pisano began building it in 1173.

It first started to subside when it was only 30 feet high. Undeterred, masons continued the work, adding more levels and using columns of varying length in the vain effort to straighten the slant as the tower grew higher. The tower was completed 180 years later, with the bell tower placed on top in 1350. Since then, no fewer than 17 committees have debated on how best to correct the monument's increasingly drunken angle. The archives of the Opera Primaziale, the body responsible for the tower's care, are full of schemes proposed over the past 150 years. The present scheme involved several experimental techniques, including putting 800 tons of lead counterweights on the side opposite the lean.

At the end, experts adopted the simplest and most intuitive solution: digging out some earth from the side away from the tilt to allow the tower to settle more evenly. More than 40 drills were used to remove 38 cubic meters of earth, while the tower • 14,000 tons of intricately carved white marble • was steadied by steel cables attached to the first tier and anchored to the ground. "The key point of the project has been finding out that a slight decrease of the inclination would have stabilized the tower," Carlo Viggiani of Naples University commented. Closed since January 1990, after experts noticed that its inclination had increased at a rate of 1 millimeter a year, the straightened tower reopened to the public on Dec. 15, 2001. Guided tours of 30 people at a time are allowed to climb the 294 steps up the spiral stairway to the bell chamber.


The Cathedral and the Leaning Tower of Pisa	Detail of the Leaning Tower. It doesn't seem possible that it can still stand, leaning at such an angle

The wonderful entrance to the Cemetery with not a tourist in sight (rare)	Inside the Cemetery

One of the marvelous tombstones in the Cemetery	Inside the Cemetery

This panel seems to show the different layers of a Fresco	Inside The Cathedral

My ticket for climbing the tower	People waiting to climb to the top of the tower. Look at the lean

The first flight of stairs leaning up the tower are relatively wide. The stairs seem worn unevenly due to the lean of the tower	The view to the Cathedral and the Baptistery from the first viewing point of the Tower

The view down to the Cathedral from the first viewing point of the Tower	Looking down from the tower

The last flight of stairs up the tower narrow considerably	On the top of the Leaning Tower. Police guard all three viewing platforms and tell you when your viewing time is over to return down

View from the top of the tower	View from the top

View from the top	View from the top. You can see the first viewing platform below in this "external" shot

The top of the Cathedral	Another "external" shot from the tower

Pisa stadium seen from the top of the tower	Time to walk down again

The secluded area behind the tower	Plaque inside the tower recalling Galileo's experiments with gravity which took place here

The tower	Peace flags are omnipresent in large numbers in Italy

Figure peering down from a wonderful old house facade in Pisa	Nice Hotel Europa where we stayed the night

The garden of Hotel Europa	Droplets on a water lily in the gardens

We returned to Campo del Miracoli the next morning, here is one of the back doors to the Cathedral	Used to be the favourite car of the Italians, but times have changed...