The leaning tower of Pizza (15 July)
Yesterday saw Tim and I load up the campervan again from the various items we had deposited in the apartment. It is amazing how much stuff you can collect in just a few days! The boys stayed with Ian and Sue aiming to catch the fast train to Pisa and meet us there. Tim and I had a peaceful and hassle-free drive to Pisa, arriving and setting up our camp before the others had even left Levanto! Our campsite is neat and tidy, has a good pool (a must for us in this weather), a fair amount of shade and clean bathrooms (an important point!). We were soon re-united with Ian and Sue and after a swim tackled Pisa.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa (or Pizza as Caleb likes to call it!) was amazing. I remembered the stairs so clearly from when I climbed it when I was 8 years old as if it were yesterday. Tim, Josh and I climbed right up to the top to survey the view, while Ian and Sue followed in another group. Unfortunately children under 8 years cannot climb, so Caleb and Daniel were not allowed to come. They were almost soothed by an icecream however! It was a surreal experience to climb up the inside, and quite dizzying. It seems incredible that such a substantial structure (or not so substantial as it turned out!) was built for the sole purpose of ringing the bells to tell people to come to church. The tower started leaning while it was being built, and to try to rectify the fault the builders gradually tried to angle the structure more upright. There have been substantial renovations since, and even when we were there the tower had scaffolding around one level. Only 40 people are allowed up at one time. While up the top of the tower, we were not allowed to shout to people below. It made us wonder if they merely did not want us to be loud, or that the tower was in more serious trouble than we thought with sound waves threatening its stability! We returned to our campsite in the early evening and fell into bed.
Today we ventured back to the Tower and viewed the buildings that surrounded it. After some research on the web I had discovered that Galileo was born in Pisa, and the buildings around the Tower housed some of his experiments and documents. The Baptistry was first on the list, where Galileo was baptized. There were supposed to be some documents about this in the building but we were unable to find any. Nevertheless it was an interesting building. The security person gave a demonstration of the acoustics of the building by singing a few notes. The acoustics were such that it sounded like a number of people were singing, and it was hauntingly beautiful.
Next on the list was the Duomo or cathedral. This had some relics of saints in it, including a visible skull which the boys were suitably impressed by. The beautifully carved marble alter held somewhat less appeal! This building was where Galileo had noticed how swinging rods holding candles swung at different speeds depending on their length. From there observations, he came up with the pendulum. We went into the Cemetary building to view the actual lamp Galileo used for his experiments. At least, we think it was the lamp – it was not exactly labeled. Finally, we toured one of the museums there as the information I had said that Galileo’s experimental equipment could be found there. Unfortunately, this information was incorrect and there was nothing there much of interest for the kids. Josh and Tim later rode to where the tour guide suggested we might find the equipment, however it was a derelict building with nothing open so they returned disappointed.
After a tiring morning of sightseeing, we headed back to the campervan for a bit of schooling and the whole afternoon in the pool. The boys had a ball with a water volleyball set (using it for a variety of purposes!), a waterslide, and icecreams. We had our last dinner with Ian and Sue at the camping site’s restaurant, then unfortunately needed to say goodbye so they could catch their plane back to London. We will certainly miss them! It has been a wonderful week, and we are really thankful that they could make the tricky excursion to meet up with us.
