Pisa

06/06/2010

Our Lonely Planet guidebook on Pisa states that apart from the leaning tower and the surrounding square, there really isn't much to see. It also says the area surrounding the tower has the highest and most densely squashed together number of tat shops of just about anywhere. It is (mostly) correct on both accounts. There are a quite astonishing number of stalls set up to sell all kinds of tourist tat, particularly 'genuine' Italian leather goods. It's amazing that they can all make a decent trade but then again there are also a ridiculous number of tourists visiting, most of who ignore the 'keep of the grass' signs to get a particular snapshot of the tower, which almost inevitabley is of their spouse/friend/other in the 'both palms up at an angle to look like they are keeping the tower from falling over' pose. A significant number of these put their hands up at the wrong angle from the vertical. Yes, that's right, the tower will now be leaning to your left if you turn to face away from it. It's not going to lean the other way just so it's always conviently leaning to your right.

The tower itself (and surrounding buildings) is actually quite beautiful and would be worth seeing even if it wasn't on a gimmicky lean.

We wandered through Pisa on the recommended walking tour and there wasn't much to see, however we came across the reason that the guide book is mostly correct: After a month of searching we found a gelataria that makes orange flavoured gelati, something that Catherine has been looking for for a long time. Actually, it wasn't strictly orange, it was 'citrus' but it was excellent. The verdict from Catherine was, 'Yep. That's it'.