(Pisa, Italy)
I decided to take a break from the arduous climbing in the Cinque Terre to go to the big city…and do some more arduous climbing!
Pisa is not very far from the Cinque Terre. Although Pisa is a beautiful city and has an extremely old university…it is best known for an engineering misadventure. I had to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa for myself, to see what all the fuss was about. I had also heard that you could go to the very top of the tower. Wouldn’t that be something?
Rather than be tied down to a specific time (you can buy a ticket for a specific time slot in advance), I decided that I would just show up. March is the off-season, so I decided to let fate have its way. If it was meant to be, then I would do it. Even in the off-season, Pisa gets thousands of visitors a day and they cannot all climb the tower. To balance supply and demand, there is a relatively steep fee. Having come this far, I decided that the fee was worth it. How many other people would reach the same conclusion?
It was 11:30 a.m. by the time I got to the Tower site. I asked if there might be any tickets left for the rest of the day, expecting that I would be assigned a time slot of something like 4:45 p.m. However, much to my surprise, I was told that I could go up at 11:45 a.m.! I had no time to think about it – the time was now!
My first impression was: is this for real? It is *really* leaning and it is also very tall (around 57 metres). It is tall enough that the “lean” is about 15 feet! The lean became apparent during construction: the culprit was soft land on one side that was insufficient to hold the tower’s weight. As there were also a number of delays (construction was in three stages and took almost 200 years), new architects became involved and you can see that the 4th tier from the ground was intended to correct the tilt.
After an airport-style security check, I was climbing the tower. The first thing that became apparent is that the entire tower is crooked…including the stairs. They are made from marble and are rather slippery. They also have been “grooved” from the many people who have climbed the tower over the years. It was quite disorienting to climb it: I caught myself laughing a couple of times because it was such an unusual sensation.
When I reached the main observation level after climbing about 300 steps, I was a little concerned about the fact that there was no solid wall or barricade. There is only a (presumably strong) wire fence, which is great for views but also reinforces that you are about 50 metres above the ground and that the floor is significantly tilting. The deck is also only a few feet wide. The “up” side wasn’t too bad but the “down” side felt very unnatural and, yes, rather scary.
The views were striking but there was more: the stairway to the belfry was also open. These stairs were even narrower. The belfry level has better views but is even scarier, as the “deck” is actually terraced and each “step” is probably only about a foot wide. Scariest of all was the “down” side of the belfry level. I walked around twice, with very careful steps, and retreated to the relatively secure main level. I stress “relative”.
After a few more circuits around the observation level, I was craving level ground and descended quickly to the linear and perpendicular world. It’s incredible how disorienting even a slight tilt can be. I’m so glad that I climbed the tower and experienced an iconic structure in such a direct way…but I also emerged with a newfound respect for engineering and proper planning!