Almost 30 years ago, Mum and Dad also climbed the tower of Pisa. Here are a couple of photos from their trip. This was way (way, way!) before digital cameras so there are only two photos (compared to the hundred or so Andrew and I took).



I love how there is a little, orange car parked right in front of the Tower. (Please excuse the dodgy photoshop job. There was a smudge on the photo.)



When Mum and Dad climbed the tower it actually had more of a lean than it does today. Recent restoration work straightened the tower by 45 centimetres, returning it to the position it was in 1838. So Andrew and I actually climbed an older version of the tower than Mum and Dad. We're time travellers!

More photos on Flickr

To get to Cinque Terre, we had the option of flying to Genoa or Pisa. In the end we decided on Pisa because it was cheaper (0p flights! yay!) and really who could resist a visit to that most famous mistake, The Leaning Tower of Pisa. On our last day in Italy, we left Manarola early in the morning and caught a train straight to Pisa. We left our luggage at the deposito bagagli at the train station, along with the rest of the tourists who'd also alighted from the train. It would seem that a quick pit-stop to see the Leaning Tower is the thing to do.

I think the word that I'd use to describe the Leaning Tower of Pisa is fun. When you arrive at the Piazza one of the first things you see (apart from the Dome, the Cathedral and the Tower) is tourists all lined up doing the famous "pushing the tower" shot. I'm sure you've seen it. You stand with your hands up in the air, and take a photo which makes it look like you are holding the tower up. Either that or you lean with the tower, or hug the tower. It's all a bit of silliness but who can resist this bit of fun? (Not Andrew and I, you can see our examples below. For once I didn't stand out as peculiar when I took the photos of the kids.)


Climbing the Tower is lots of fun too. It's a little bit expensive at 15 euro a piece but it's an experience I wouldn't have missed for the world. Just walking through the front door is a disorientating experience. After walking through a door that is slanted at a ridiculous angle, you've entered into an Alice in Wonderland like reality. You technically climb up the spiral staircase but it's more like up, up, up, then flat, flat, flat, then down, down, down... and then back to the up. I found walking the terraces that encircle the outside of the tower a little bit scary. The photos we took just don't manage to catch the strange perspective you have of the world around you. The world is right and you're just a little bit crazy. It was better than a ride at a funfair.



Later that evening when we'd finally made it back to London (after a typically crap Ryanair journey) I said to Andrew... "don't you find it surreal that at lunchtime today we were standing on the Leaning Tower of Pisa and now we're at home in our bed." And it's the same with all our trips. I'm very grateful to be lucky enough to see these places. Places that I've wanted to see since I was a little girl.

Some Tower Trivia for you:

• the tower leans to the southwest at an angle of almost 4 degrees.
  
  
• the tower started to lean shortly after construction begun in 1173 due to a poorly laid foundation and loose soil.
  
  
• Engineers built the higher floors (fourth floor and above), with one side taller than the other to try to compensate for the lean. This means the tower is actually curved. (You can see curve in the photos.)
  
  
• In May 2008, after yet another round of restoration work on the tower, they announced that the tower had stopped moving for the first time in history. They declared that it would be stable for the next 200 years.
  
  

More photos on Flickr