The Leaning Tower

I woke up around 8:30 (that's sleeping in for me!) and went through all of my Venice images and prepared the text to go along with them for posting. One of the girls took the initiative to go through the kitchen and living area to clean up after the other's messes--so I decided to go to my room and straighten up as well. Around 10:30 AM I got the news that some of the roommates were going to Pisa for the afternoon and I decided to tag along with them. Unfortunately, waiting for four girls to get ready took a lot more time than expected and stopping for a bite to eat during peak time put us even more behind schedule, so we didn't leave the Santa Maria train station until 2 PM!


The train ride was only €5 and lasted for a little over an hour. Once we arrived we discovered that another house from our FSU group had decided to make the trip as well as take the same train that we did. Having them along gave us a much larger group and an unintentional free bus ride to the Tower and Basilica complex. We got off at a stop that looked promising and luckily it lead directly to the grounds!


Upon entering we were overwhelmed by the amount of tourist carts and street hagglers, waaaaaay more in Pisa then can be found in Firenze. Immediately we took out our cameras and began taking quirky snapshots with the tower. Here's one of me and some of my roommates (I have 6 total):


We walked the grounds and admired how pristine everything was. The baptistry out front is one of the few round baptistries in existence (most are octagonal). We didn't go inside any of the buildings except for the crypt, as the tourist fees were outrageous. The grass out front was roped off because it is known as "The Field of Miracles" not only for the Tower that still manages to stand, but also for the fact that bodies interred within its soil (supposedly) decompose to bone in only 3 days.





Here are some highlights from the crypt:





As you can tell from the photos it was kind of a dreary day, however the rain we received was mostly sprinkles and not detrimental to the experience. We would have seen much more rain had we stayed in Florence for the day, and this was the first rainy day we had received since the trip began.


Everyday a new surprise! When I woke up this morning I had no idea that I would be visiting THE premier Italian monument! I wonder what tomorrow holds...