Pisa

Pisa is quite gorgeous, but we only explored the Piazza Dei Mirocali (where the tower is).

Of course, the first thing we saw was the Bell Tower on the left and the cathedral in the centre. The man on the ground is posing for a picture. The final shot will show him pushing the tower over.

When the first section of the tower was built, it was already leaning, so construction was halted. Because they are built on marshy ground, all of the buildings in the square lean to some extent.

Look closely a the cathedral and you will notice the marble blocks are not uniform in colour,

When extra levels were added they provided counter-balance to compensate for the lean. In this shot you can see that the tower was bent like a banana. As a result, each tier is slightly more level than the one below it.

The flattest level is at the very top.

The Baptistery.

Inside the baptistery there is a skull on the floor. It is meant to represent the death of Adam. If even the first man had to die, then we all must die in the end.

This is a picture of the cathedral taken from the baptistery.

This picture is meant to show the many different colours of marble which were used in the construction. These monuments were built on the site of old Roman ruins. There was much marble strewn about for Pisa to use to their advantage. The stone to build all of these buildings was scavenged.

Because the tower continued to lean, they eventually had to drain the water from below the tower. The leaning continued to lean, but more slowly. The dug under and built supports, so that they were able to reduce the lean.

Here we are with Litizia who has been our guide for all of the tours so far. She is amazing.