Italian Adventure 2012: Day 14 Pisa

Well our plan was to be at the beach by 10am, but getting Brayden up in the morning is no fun task, so we were running a bit behind. We made it to the beach and the parking lot was pretty empty, so the guy says, it’s a slow day so admission is free and it will be only $3 for parking, AWESOME!!!! We get down to the beach and set up and the boys are off into the water. They came back shortly after getting in the water and wanted boogie boards, I immediately said sure since we didn’t pay anything to get in today. The boys played with them for a bit before they ended up just laying on the beach. No big deal though they were having a good time.

That's right I am a surfer baby!!!!

Board 18, what??? Seems to be the Tester family #

The water today was surprisingly warm and I got in to play with the boys, but most of the time I laid out soaking up the sun. It was such a nice and relaxing day. The boys built and awesome sand castle, but we realized that after it was destroyed by the rising tide that it was suppose to be Berg Tester, not Burg Tester. No worries though, it was awesome.

Much less people than yesterday.

I did not want to leave the beach because I was so relaxed, but we had plans to get back and shower and rest so we could head into Pisa to complete the Scout Historic Trail when it was cooler outside and not as busy. I am so glad we planned it this way because as we were pulling into the town center we found parking immediately. This man was ushering us to a spot and then followed me to the machine to pay and it was making me very nervous. Danny had to make him understand we were not paying him to watch our car and we wanted him to just leave us alone. We were worried about what we were going to find when we got back to our car. But we figured it was fully covered that we were not going to worry about it, we were going to enjoy Pisa.

Making our mark in Pisa

So we started off at the Baptistry. We thought it was free, but we should have known better. We headed over to the ticket counter and purchased the ticket that allowed us to get into the 3 buildings the square and Ryan opted not to climb the tower.

The Baptistry was the second monument to be built in the piazza. Construction on it started in 1153, but due to many interruptions, it wasn’t completed until the 14th century. The Baptistry is the imposing building on the opposite side of the Cathedral from the Tower. It has a circular base whose diameter is about 115 feet, and its three stories, topped by a dome, rise about 180 feet above the lawn. The sheer size of the building isn’t apparent until you go inside and get a sense of its huge proportions. Inside, in the middle of the temple, is found the Baptismal Font, an octagonal basin for baptism by immersion. Another notable work of art is the pulpit sculpted by Nicola Pisano in 1260. If you ask, one the guards might let you hear the echo in the Baptistry. Music played there re-echoes so many times through the vault that it sounds like you are listening to thundering organ music.

We were not there during the echo time, but the boys did climb the stairs to the top while I took a picture from below. I decided to run up there to join them and was could tell the workouts were paying off until I got to the top and was huffing and puffing. There were way more stairs than I thought, lol. But I blame it on the heat and it was hard to catch your breathe, yeah that is what it was.

Our next stop was the Duomo. In 1063 Pisa was an important and powerful marine Republic. To show off its wealth the huge cathedral at Piazza dei Miracoli was constructed. The Duomo or Cathedral, built of

pure white stone, was the first monument to rise in the piazza. It measures 328 feet long and 177 feet high, and is designed in a Latin cross form in a Romanesque architectural style. Its façade has 5 orders of arches placed one on top of another and each order has fine, delicate stonework. The sides and repeat the decorations of the façade so that the whole building is a wonderful work of architecture and sculpture. The dome shows influences of Islamic art. Of particular interest are the huge bronze doors of the Portale di San Ranieri cast in 1180 and showing scenes from the Bible.

Inside, make sure you stop near the inner wall of the façade to get the full view of the black and white stone interior and admire the numerous magnificent works of art found there such as the stone pulpit, the masterpiece carved by Giovanni Pisano in 1302. Strangely enough this pulpit was dismantled in 1599 and not discovered and rebuilt until 1926! Among other notable works is the tomb of Emperor Henry VII (1315) by Tino da Camaino and a mosaic of Christ in Majesty completed by Cimabue in 1302.

There is a bronze chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the church. It is called the lamp of Galileo because according to popular tradition, he established the principles of the pendulum while observing the oscillations of this lamp.

There were many very interesting things in this Duomo, more than any other that we have seen on this trip. It was great, but Brayden was thirsty and ready to go, so we didn’t stay inside too long.

Look at the detailing on the door

The ceiling, WOW.

Yes that is a see through casket. kinda freaky.

The Galileo lamp

Our next stop on the trail was the churchyard. The long marble walls form the rectangular cathedral churchyard. Its architectural style is like that of the other 3 monuments in the piazza. Tradition says that the churchyard contains earth brought back from Golgotha in the Holy Land during the Crusades. Sculptures,

sarcophagi and works of art scattered around Pisa were brought to the churchyard building so it became one of the greatest and richest galleries of medieval painting and sculpture. Unfortunately during World War II, this artistic patrimony was severely damaged by the bombing raids in 1944 that caused the lead roof to melt and collapse on the treasures inside. Many works of art found there are still being restored.

We originally were walking where we wanted when we first walked into the churchyard, but quickly realized this was a cemetery and all of the rectangular marble areas were actually graves. The most recent one from 2009. But I don’t think just anyone can be buried here, it looks like you have to be important to be buried here, but we didn’t see anything explaining it. So we went on to what you come to Pisa to see.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa. This thing is pretty amazing and it was interesting to learn how they built it in chunks to prevent it from falling over completely. The Leaning Tower, or cathedral bell-tower, was the third building to be constructed at Piazza dei Miracoli. Work began on the Romanesque style Tower in 1173 and just 12 years later, it started to tilt but in the opposite direction from where it tilts now. Masons inserted
stone wedges to correct the problem, and the Tower started leaning in the opposite direction! After building only 3 stories, construction was stopped. A century or so later, architects added another 3 lopsided stories to try to counterbalance the lean, but that didn’t work. A bell chamber was finally placed on top in 1350. Over the centuries many people came up with brilliant ideas to correct the lean but all they did was to make matters worse so that by 1990 the top leaned about 15 feet from vertical, and the Tower was closed to visitors. Many scientists and engineers joined together to save the Tower with a system of steel cables and counterweights which straightened the Tower to its 1870 position. In 2001 the Tower was once again opened to the public.

We had to do the traditional pictures of holding up the tower, but we loved the idea of one of the boys pushing it ( of course it was going to be Brayden) and the other one holding it up. The boys did a great job with this one. I love it.

As we were admiring all the beauty in the Piazza we noticed that not only did the Tower lean, but all the buildings were sinking and tilting and I went back to read a bit more about this history and this is what I found.

Piazza dei Miracoli, the city’s ecclesiastical center which was first laid out in the mid 11th century. The four major buildings on this piazza, the Duomo or Cathedral, its Campanile or Bell tower which became the
Leaning Tower, the Battistero or Baptistry and the Camposanto or Cemetery were built on a wide grassy lawn that is still beautiful and green today. Right from the beginning there was a problem with the lawn however – it rested on top of very unstable sandy soil and because of this, soon after the construction of the four monuments were completed, all of them began to lean.

It was about time for dinner, so we made our way towards our next destination and found a nice little café along the way that we grabbed some pizza for the boys (nope they are not tired of it yet), I had lasagna, and Danny has mushroom risotto and a nice cold beer. They kindly gave him the glass when we asked if we could purchase one. It was a nice little place and cost about as much as that ice cream spot in Rome, yes even with the beer.

We headed over to the next stop on our list. Piazza Cavalieri or Knights Plaza. But unfortunately we were unable to get the full effect of the Piazza as they were do a full reconstruction of it, so apparently people took that as let me graffiti all the walls since they are fixing it up anyways. We were able to check out the statue quickly in the square, but we didn’t spend much time here at all.

We headed down to our final stop, the Arno River where we strolled along and checked out the remaining items on our list.

I think with all this walking we have earned ourselves some gelato. We headed down the streets back to the tower when we spotted what we thought was a nice gelato place. Wrong, the worker was not nice at all. Apparently we were unconvincing her. But we got our ice cream and began walking back towards our car but about 5 steps in some kids ran into Danny and knocked his ice cream down. It was hot outside so he was not happy since he was looking forward to it. But he picked it up and scooped off all the top part that hit the road and carried on like nothing.

We walked back by the Tower and admired it a bit more before heading back to our car. I was worried about what we would find, but thankfully the guy left and our car was fine. We headed back to the cabin and chilled out in the room for the remaining part of the night.