week four: Pisa

2 October 2009
Pisa!!! So… when anyone from the states mentions Italy, it’s usually in reference to one of the following: pizza, pasta, wine, the pope, or Pisa… okay, sure, Italy’s known for a whole slew of things, and they’re all amazing… but when anyone finds out that you’re going to Italy, inevitably you get, “so, you going to see the leaning tower of Pisa?”
Having been here once before, I had had the pleasure of seeing the tower, taking the stereotypical pictures, and getting the corny souvenirs… Seriosuly, it was hard not to… the place is like an amusement park with all of the street vendors selling everything from postcards to leaning shot glasses… I think last time, one of my friends even picked up a pair of steel knuckles… yah, it’s a zoo… anyway… when asked at the beginning of this program if I was interested in visiting Pisa, I was less than thrilled… go back to such a touristy place did not sound like my idea of a fun day… Sure, I like getting all of the pictures, and seeing all of the sites, but not really at the risk of being knocked over by a huge tour group rushing to catch their bus, or getting there and realizing it’s not as good as it looks in the travel guides… but, K hadn’t been, and, since it’s just the two of us, I agreed to go… hoping and praying that I would be wrong about walking headfirst into a tourist trap…
So, Friday morning, hop on the train with L and K, ready for a day of touristy-goodness… I brought my camera, and passed much of the time deleting old pictures and making room for new ones (hey, I don’t like doing the tourist thing, but if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right!), listening to my ipod, and making sure that K and L didn’t sleep through our stop (9.27 train to Pisa was the earliest we’ve ever had to meet… most classes don’t start til 10.30!)… once we got there, I was pleasantly surprised… okay, it’s a train station, similar to the one in Viareggio, not quite as crazy as the one in Florence… good start…
Had K and I not had L there to guide us around, we no doubt would’ve gotten lost, and probably never found our way to the tourist epicenter of the city… We passed through some ally-ways, by an open loggia that looks as though it’s been converted into a graffiti gallery… then over the Arno (it was so weird to cross the Arno, and not see the Ponte Vecchio in the distance… but instead of Puccini, I Verdi’s slave chorus from Nabucco stuck in my head… yah, no, no reason… just happens, I guess…) From there, rather than heading straight into the trap, L took us through the university, and showed us where many of the greats taught… it was in what is now the University of Pisa, a very prestigious university in Italy… it was cool to really feel like I was in a college town again… nostalgia tried to set in… no, Pisa is not Boston, but, for a second there, I kind of felt like I was walking along Huntington… except instead of skyscrapers, there were Medieval and Renaissance buildings… okay, so not much like Huntington, but it felt like home!Anyway, L, being the constant teacher, took K and I to a tiny church with beautiful architecture and interesting art… It still amazes me to see the inside of some of these places… the outside façade so often is less than impressive at best, but as soon as you walk through those doors, you truly are transported into a quiet Heaven… The row of columns on either side didn’t match, each column slightly different, as they were recycled from Roman ruins, gave the place character… it almost made the place more inviting, like walking into someone’s living room where everything is mismatched, but it goes, it doesn’t match, it goes… allora… the inside was nice a cool, the soft light filtered through the stained glass, and the wood ceiling gave the whole place a cozy feel… I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about churches that always gets me… the smaller and more intimate, the better… the larger, more grandiose ones are great too, but there’s something so emotive about a small stone chapel… from there, we walked back into the hot Tuscan sun (you’d think by October they’d crank the heat below 80, but really! It’s October 2nd, and I’m wishing I had shorts and a tank, or a sundress, not jeans and a t-shirt on!!)…
We walk past the old Roman baths (much like the ones in Fiesole, actually, better preserved, but in the middle of the street… literally, there were smartcars whizzing by like it was an ice-cream stand and not an ancient roman ruin! And then, we see it… K gets excited and grabs her camera, L starts her lecture, and I hold my breath… here goes nothing…
So, the leaning tower of Pisa is really just a bell tower that was built on uneven ground… actually, if you look at the other two buildings in the complex, the baptistery and the basilica, you can see that they’re tilted as well, just not nearly as much as the bell tower… with all of that weight centralized, there was nowhere to distribute it by straight down the center, and when the ground underneath is not even, you can guess what happens! So, K and I took a few initial pictures while L went to go get the tickets (I felt like saying don’t forget the cotton candy and popcorn, but restrained myself…)When L got back with the tickets, the three of us headed toward the basilica. Now, I thought that Santa Croce was huge, but this baby was like three basilicas in one – seriously, if you looked at the floor plan, it really was three in one, each end of the transept was like a mini basilica complete with altar, nave, apse, and dome… it was gigantic… there were two rows of columns along the aisles of the main nave, and the arches looked like something out of Arabian nights, not late Medieval-early Renaissance Romanesque or Gothic stuff… it was incredible… the sheer height of the ceiling was awe-inspiring… the woman’s choir (aka second story) that lined the side of the nave was almost equal in height to the aisles underneath it… the gilded wood ceiling was almost too much to handle… it looked like someone took a spray can of gold and attacked the ceiling… beautiful, sure, overdone, I’d say… but the overall effect was incredible… it really is an unbelievable space… with the reliquaries and altars, paintings and pulpits, this was, by far, the most elaborate basilica I have been in to date.Not to be overwhelmed, K and I took too many pictures and gushed to L about the whole thing… L, having been here at least 40 times, smiled, nodded, and answered any questions we had… but she never seemed bored, she seemed to share our exuberance, it was hard not to, the two of us were dizzy with excitement, babbling on and on about everything we saw… Finally, L asked if we wanted to go to the Baptistery, because there was something there that I, in particular, would enjoy if we hurried… Having no idea what she could be talking about, but having exhausted nearly every angle of the church with our cameras, we followed L back into the sun…The short walk between the basilica and the baptistery was a sweltering few minutes pushing between other tourists just as enthused as K and I by the whole scene… When we got to the Baptistery doors, L ushered us inside (though neither K nor I had any qualms about getting out of the heat of the sun, and into the cool stone building of the baptistery)… By now it was almost 13.00, and we had been walking around for almost 3 hours… our feet were tired, we were overheated, overexcited, and overwhelmed… L told us to sit down, and wait… that sounded like the best suggestion yet… so L, K, and I sat on the cool marble steps lining the inside of the Baptistery walls, and began to look around…This baptistery was completely different from the one in Florence… the most noticeable difference, of course, is the light… this baptistery had two layers of windows, was circular (not octagonal, like its Florentine counterpart) and made of soft white marble… there was no Byzantine mosaic adorning the dome, in fact, there was little save the stained glass windows as far as decoration was concerned… it was beautiful in its simplicity… besides, it was cool, and quiet… Until, we heard the bell… someone softly struck a bell, and silenced the murmuring echoes of the people inside… when all was silent, and the doors to the outside were closed, a lone voice began to sound from the second floor… a clear tenor chant rang in the baptistery… I have no idea what he was saying, but the beauty and control of the voice was incredible… the acoustics of the room were made for the human voice… it was incredible… I was speechless… L was right, this was worth rushing here for… It didn’t last more than two minutes, but I could not get the ringing out of my ears for the rest of the day… I was completely floored by the beauty of the place, and the sound…
But, on to the next thing, K was eager to take more touristy pictures, and L wanted to get moving, so I, begrudgingly, followed suit… After what seemed like hours of taking and retaking ‘the perfect’ picture with the crooked bell tower, K and I decided to make our way through the hubbub and look at souvenirs… bad plan… I lasted all of 5min, got frustrated, bought a postcard, and looked for L… K lasted quite a bit longer… but finally, L and I tore her away long enough to realize how hungry we all were… it was nearing 15.00, and we hadn’t eaten since 8… so, L took us out of the trap (thank God!) and to a little café just outside the zoo :)
As promised, here’s what we ate:all this for €9, and just minutes from the amusement park that Pisa has become known for?? We spent a relaxing hour talking, eating, and cooling down from our trek outside, before paying and heading back into the madness…
Once back inside the park, L led K and I to the opposite side of the complex to the covered cemetery… I must be horribly morbid, or just plain strange, because I find places like this the most serene and special… This semi-closed rectangular loggia with long courtyard in the middle could have been a basilica, if you had looked at the floor plan, but the openness of the space, and all of the natural light allowed it to be a very peaceful, comforting place for the dead… it’s strange how graveyards get this bad rap of being creepy and foreboding, because this place was the farthest thing from that idea… it really did seem a place of eternal rest…
Once we were done in the cemetery, L dragged K and I to one last place, the opera… and no, all of you thought music, you’re wrong (truth be told, had I not already made the mistake 6bil times before, I would have been tricked this time too… however, I had learned, and did not get my hopes up the moment I caught glimpse of that word… though Verdi’s Nabucco came rushing back into my head…) opera, in this sense, means large work, or compilation of works… basically a big museum collection… which is not quite as exciting, but not a horrible alternative :) We walked around, talking about the different sculptures, paintings, frescos, and such, until finally, we found ourselves outside in the beautiful little courtyard… this was by far the most picturesque view of Pisa… free from the claustrophobic tourist crowds, silent, save the soft roar of people (reminiscent of the ocean waves lapping against the sand on a warm summer night) that seemed worlds away from where we were… This is the Pisa I will remember, and this is the Pisa, I don’t want to forget… even though looking back, I could swear some of my pictures look like I photo-shopped the tower in!