Well, we came into port of Livorno, a big industrial port. They make boats here. The Seven Stars boat manufacturing company. Most seem to be luxury mega yachts. There have to be 2 dozen HUGE ones here right now. There is a ship next to us in the port that got my interest. It is currently named Cape Wrath but its original name was Hual Trader. It is a car carrier ship with US registry. Of course, there are several ships, cruise ships, ferries, … The most interesting ferries have huge cartoon characters on the sides. These are BIG ferries almost like small cruise ships. There is one completely dedicated to Batman and one for Superman. Two with multiple cartoon characters from Bugs Bunny, Sylvester, Tweety Bird, Tasmanian Devil, Coyote,… We have a quick breakfast and head down for our tour of Pisa. The bus ride took us to a trolley that dropped us just outside the plaza. Our guide had a very thick accent and this made understanding him difficult. We drove around Pisa on the bus as he quickly pointed out locations, churches, bridges,… The trolley which was very bumpy. Yes, we got the full “trolley” experience. We walked into the Piazza del Duomo where the Leaning tower of Pisa is located. There is the tower of course which is much larger than I thought but also a very large church. The church is huge and next to it is the worlds largest baptistery. One whole building is dedicated to baptistery. It is the largest building dedicated to that purpose. It does not have a huge pool inside for baptisms. Even so that building is impressive. It was built in 1180. Is round and over 107 meters in diameter (351 feet) and over 54 meters tall (178 feet). Both the church and baptistery are covered in carvings and marble. The church was built in 1064. Everything is SO OLD. To give you a better idea this church is hundreds of years when Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Marco Polo were born and Christopher Columbus and Galileo Galilei great-great-great grandfathers had not been born yet. AMAZING! Okay back to the main attraction, a bell tower that started to lean and would have fallen to pieces if it had not been re-enforced. That's right the Tower of Pisa is a bell tower and was not even started until many years after the church was completed. Remember that it is documented that Galileo dropped to balls of different weights from the tower to prove his theory of free fall in gravity so we know he visited this area at least once. The tower was started in 1174 but was not complete until 1372. The slow completion was because even at the beginning it was obvious that something was wrong with the foundation. The tower began to lean during construction due to soft ground that would not completely support the weight of even the incomplete tower. The sinking and leaning continued to get worse as the tower was completed but the bells had yet to be installed. In an attempt to limit the problems with the increasing weight the walls are thinner as they reach the top. There are over 290 steps to the top. We did not have time to make the walk up. One more thing to add to the list of things we will want to do when we come back. The weight of the tower is estimated at 14,500 tons. The tower has 296 or 294 steps; the seventh floor has two fewer steps on the north-facing side of the staircase. By 1990, the tilt had reached 5.5 degrees. The structure was stabilized by remedial work between 1993 and 2001, which reduced the tilt to 3.97 degrees. Today the tower is 183 feet tall on one side and 185 on the other. We grabbed a quick lunch at a cafe. It was great but this is Italy and if you sit down at a cafe there is an expectation that you will be there for a while and in no hurry at all. We had to make it clear that we were on a tour and only had 30 minutes to eat. Thankfully they were able to help us. Back on the trolley for a bouncy ride back to the bus that would take us to the Cruise Ship and our last view of the the tower. Overall a very nice day. We got to tour around the tower and other buildings in the plaza. We had some Italian pizza and something to drink.
We needed much more time and planning to go into the tower, church, baptistry, and the cloistered cemetery. All require timing and the tower requires reservations to climb. Maybe someday we will come back with more time.
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