Is Pisa Worth the Effort to Get There?

More than 15 Minutes and a Selfie in the Land of Pisans

A good way through planning my latest trip to Italy, I wonder, is the Leaning Tower of Pisa really worth the effort, or should I just skip it? On the adventure, there will only be time for, at most, a day trip from Florence to Pisa by train; then I will be taking the train back to Florence and heading to Venice. Thinking about it for a while, I imagine it is like the Grand Canyon: 15 minutes and you’re done. Everyone I talk to tells me it is really touristy, that it looks just like the pictures, that they’d definitely rate it meh.

I am on the verge of skipping it again when I ask myself, how many times am I going to go to Italy and not go to Pisa? I have to go just to say I have gone.

And so I go. It’s an easy ride from Florence, and the train station in Pisa includes a baggage check so I can ditch my gear. Because I only have a few hours, I take a taxi to the tower. Sure enough, plenty of tee shirt booths are outside the walls of the Piazza dei Miracoli, or field of miracles. Once inside, though, the atmosphere is more serene. Yes, there are way too many tourists taking silly selfies. The grass may not be walked upon.

But the silly old tower really leans! I marvel at it more than I think I will, take photos from every angle, sit at a café with a view of it. It is so ridiculous, and yet it is the only reason I am here. Construction began in 1173, and it began to list almost immediately thanks to the wet soil on which it is constructed. After 200 years of fits and starts, the tower—an unintended tribute to building inspectors and planning boards everywhere—has been standing, with quite a bit of help from its friends, ever since. I can’t help but marvel that, surely, one of the construction workers must have said at one point, “Is it me, or does this thing seem to have a tilt?”

The lawyer in me longs for the back story on this one, the terms of the original construction agreement, the reactions of stakeholders when that lean could no longer be ignored. I get more than 15 minutes of fun looking at the thing all the way around.

I am glad I came; the craziness of this tower cannot really be appreciated from the photos. From the tower, I take a leisurely walk back to the train station, aided by a less-than-ideal map and an even better global positioning system on my smartphone.

—Lori Tripoli

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Planning a trip to Italy? You might like these posts:

• An Italian Itinerary
• How to Feel like You’re Living in Florence
• Venice in Winter
• Florence: A Double and the Duomo
• Venice: Meeting Hemingway at Harry’s Bar
• Italy on a Budget: Rome Can Be Reasonable
• The Bashful Adventurer’s Adventures in Italy

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