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Tuscany
September 2007
Part
4: Pisa
 Tuesday
was the
day for the Untours boat excursion along the Arno River in Pisa.
We were supposed to
meet at the Church of San Michele delgli Scalzi at 11 AM.
Although we left plenty of time, we were stopped by a flagman
just outside of town where a crew was clearing cane along the side of
the road. We still made it in time, following Cathy's driving
directions, but many others didn't. The route is rather
tricky -
the turn onto Via Agnelli seemed to be the place where most got messed
up. A lot of the streets in that area are one way so we were
grateful (again) for the GPS that told us how to get turned around and
go back to where we had missed the turn.  Although
we had to wait about half an hour for everyone else to arrive and to
start our short walk over to the river and the boat, in the meantime we
got to look at the very old church (right) with leaning tower #2.
Not so famous but certainly leaning!The third leaning tower in Pisa (left) is on the church of San Nicola (on via Santa Maria, behind the Palazzo Reale). It was just barely visible from the river and so I didn't get a picture of it. But since I think it is worth noting that there are actually at least three leaning towers in Pisa, I have borrowed a picture (the following link satisfies the legal requirements for use of it) from Wikipedia. The tilt isn't so obvious from that perspective, but it does lean for the same reasons that the others do - the unstable ground on which they were built.  We
had a wonderful tour on a pontoon (right) operated by Il Navicello.
Our guide, Michele, spoke excellent English and entertained
us with stories and humor for an hour while we went from Piagge down
the Arno, under four of the bridges to San Paola a ripa d'Arno and back
up. It took me a full day to go through all the pictures I
took and re-identify the various buildings and bridges. (In
case you were wondering why it takes so long for me to put together a
trip report!) I won't give you all of them, nor most of the
historical and legendary details, but here is a sampling of what we
saw.   
 
 Santa Maria
della Spina is worth a comment. It was built in 1230 as the
Oratory of Santa Maria del Pontenovo. It was renamed because
it is said to have preserved one of the thorns (spina) from the crown
of Christ which is, for some reason, now housed in the Church of Santa
Chiara (also in Pisa). On each of the spires is a copy of a
statue of a saint - the highest reserved for a copy of Pisano's Maddona with Child.
     
  After
the tour it was lunch time. The cafe that Cathy usually uses
for this event was closed today for a private party (I think it was a
wedding celebration for the owner) so we had to walk a few blocks and
across the river to an alternate - Bar Tavola Calda Lissus.
The food was wonderful but we were crammed into a narrow
"party room" with institutional ambiance - the nice cafe by the river
would have been pleasant. However, we had a great meal with cold cuts and bread, 2 antipastos (tomato and paté), 2 pastas (sausage/tomato and pesto), grilled veggies and salad. And *huge* slices of lemon cake for dessert! Yum. After a two hour lunch I don't think we'll need much supper! It was also nice to walk around a bit in the residential areas of Pisa. Quiet tree-lined streets with pleasant park areas. And no tourists. Certainly a part of Pisa we would not have seen except for this particular excursion.  After a relax
break at the apartment we went to the beach looking for a sunset again.
It was somewhat less cloudy but we
were astonished at the difference from the
quiet water we
saw a few days earlier - it was quite windy and the sea was very rough.
Katie took the Barb and John pictures below - you can see why we
called it the "blustery evening." We came home covered in salt
water mist! We also
discovered that the past weekend (September 16) was the end of the
"season." The chairs and umbrellas were all packed away.
When we went back the following week it wasn't
"closed" in the sense that access was blocked, but there were no longer
any amenities.      On
Wednesday, we went back to finish up Pisa. We left about 8:30
AM and there was lots of traffic but it still only takes about 15
minutes or so to get to the PT lot. We didn't wait for the
shuttle and just walked down to the "Field of Miracles." We
purchased our admission tickets while there weren't any lines - Katie
and Dave wanted to climb the tower (15€) and we all wanted to
visit several of the buildings. (At about 9 AM in
mid-September they had their choice of any times after 9:40.)
After we spent a lot of time studying the pricing board and
options available, we discovered that we actually just had to tell the
agent what we wanted to see and he figured out the most economical
combination ticket for us. I believe we paid 8€ for
admission to the baptistry, the Duomo and the Camposanto dei
Monumentos.But first, we headed to the Orto Botanico (botanical garden) that is free but only open in the morning. The picture at the left is the tower as seen from the gardens. More of the gardens below:        I asked John to
stand next to the bamboo (above) just so you can get the idea of how
HUGE they are. (John is about 6' 2".) The building
below is the Antico Instituto di Botanica - the "old" building.
There was a plaque that provided the following information.
The building already existed in the 16th century and was
restored from 1591-1595. It was connected, through a corridor
lined with whale bones, to a 3 story palazzo which served as the main
entrance to the garden. In 1752 a newer museum addition was
built and lavishly decorated with shells and madrepores (coral).
I also show a close up of the facade where you can see some
of the "lavish" decoration!
   The Ginkgo tree,
from 1787, presented a problem because I couldn't get far enough back
from it to capture a picture. So I took two pictures and then
"copy and pasted" them together. That accounts for the line
across its middle and the slight mismatch you'll see in the top
compared to the bottom! It was a very impressive 220 year old
tree! There were also some very large sycamores and Giant Sequoias that I didn't even try to capture. We were there for an hour and a half or so and enjoyed the visit and the variety of things they had. There is also a "new" building from 1890 that houses research and museum material. We just wandered the outdoor garden.  Next
we went the few blocks back up to the Campo dei Miracoli and into the
baptistry which is the largest in Italy and was begun in the 12th
century. I have been aware of all the
"baptisteries" in Europe but did not understand what they were.
Apparently baptisms were historically a big community event -
huge numbers of people were baptized at the same time. So a
baptistry was designed with a large font and also to hold a large
audience. The acoustics are remarkable and every half hour
tourists are silenced for a demonstration. I climbed up to the galleria and got nice views of both the lower level and also the Duomo and Tower out the windows.      
and then came back to
watch. That little tiny person in the picture above is Katie
taking pictures three stories from the top. I took some of
them up on the tippy top, too, but there they are just dots. To
the right is a tower picture Katie took of us. John steadfastly
refused to play "hold up the tower" but he would stand there with me! Next we went
into the Duomo. Again, no flash was permitted so photos are
not sharp but I think give you the general idea of the awesome
interior. It is as much art museum as church, full of
mosaics, paintings, frescoes, sculpture. Here is a glimpse of
a piece of the ceiling and the interior doors. In the next
row of pictures is the pulpit (left), the work of Giovanni Pisano,
begun in 1302. The mosaic Christ in Majesty (center) was
completed by Cimabue in that same year. On the right is the
mummified body of the patron saint of Pisa - San Ranieri.
Below those I have added some more examples of the interior and the
artwork - paintings as well as frescoes.           Whew.
Time for a lunch break! We ate at Ristorante Santa
Maria just to the east of the campus, one of many, many restaurants
nearby catering to the hordes of tourists. The food was good
but at 1 PM they were very busy so the service wasn't great. Among us,
we had pizza, antipasti, gnocchi, and a "Menu Turiste" 3 course
meal. We have so enjoyed the outdoor cafes in Paris and in
Italy, we have to wonder why this isn't done more often in the US.
Once again, I was both educated and entertained in the
restroom - the sink had foot pedals to turn on the water.
(Clearly, I am easily entertained.)Finally we went through the Camposanto dei Monumentos, which has been called the most beautiful cemetery in the world! It is part museum, part art gallery, part cemetery. Originally it was a collection of Egyptian and Roman artifacts - sarcophagi, columns, tablets, dating back to BC. Around the 11th - 12th centuries, they began to reuse these sarcophagi, in particular, to bury prominent Pisans. Over 2000 square meters were once covered with frescoes but most were destroyed during Allied bombing in 1944. The major surviving work is Buonamico Buffalmacco's "Triumph of Death" painted within a few months of the Black Death of 1348. Restoration work continues as you will see in some of the pictures below. 
    The two fresco images below are from the Triumph of Death. Below them are some more frescoes being restored and a view of the inside courtyard of the Camposanto.      This was the end
of our Pisa exploration, but Wednesday isn't over yet! So go
on to Part 5 for our afternoon and evening entertainment.
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