16th June 2000 Pisa
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2000
1
51
81
Trip End
Aug 09, 2000
Pisa,
Italy
Thursday, June 26, 2003
After our long day yesterday, we were late starting out for Pisa. First stop the post office, where Cheryl has discovered a lady who speaks more English than any other postal worker so far encountered in Italy, and consequently spends 25 minutes discussing postal rates and means and methods. In summary, we have been posting home 3-4 kg packages at L40,000+. We could have posted up to 5kg for the same price, or 2kg for L14,000. In other words, we would be better off sending three separate 2kg pastles, for L42,000.
On to Pisa. We took the usual route to Lucca, followed the walls of the town around until we came to the first Pisa signpost, and followed it out of town. Pisa is just 20 km from Lucca. We drove over the hills that separate them, and quite suddenly, as you come through the final hill, at a reasonable height, there is Pisa sitting on the plain below, with the Tower, Duomo and Baptistry dominating the skyline. The drive in is also very pleasant, with the narrow country road for the last three or so kilometers being lined by trees. The road is set above the fields, and the trees are planted right on the edge of the road and very close together. Run off the road here, and you are in serious trouble.
My approach to any large town is to head for the walls, and then work around them to get a feeling for what is where. In the case of Pisa, we found ourselves driving alongside the wall beyond which is the Tower, Duomo and Baptistry. All parking was limited time metres, and the traffic was thick. By more good luck than management, I didn't turn left to follow the walls, and in going straight ahead, found myself in a short street leading to a large car park. Immediatly on the right were some parking spots, with signs that we couldn't quite interpret, but figured didn't threaten to tow us away or throw us in jail, so we parked. By this stage it was 12.30, and close enough to time for the few shops on this strip to close for the afternoon. We figured we would be back by 5.00 pm when they re-opened, and therefore unlikely to raise their ire if it did turn out to be a delivery/loading zone.
We only had to walk several hundred metres to the "porta", and we stepped immediatly through the gate to be greeted by this vast brilliant green lawn surrounding the three monuments, The Field of Miracles. This has to leave Firenze for dead. The Duomo, Campanile and Baptistry in Firenze is so hemmed in by the rest of the city, that there is no point at which you can get a clear view of it in its entirity. Even if you could, it is covered in polutant grime. Pisa is pristine clean, and the vast green lawn sets off the white marble perfectly. Additionally, the architectural style is more to my taste. We had already had a clue to this style from Lucca, where the churches were all designed in this style, with the fascade of the front of the church composed of tiers of columns. I kind of figure that Pisa took as its role model, the columns and use of marble from ancient Rome, whereas Firenze is an example of more money than taste, and set the standard for modern Itilian decoration. One tour guidebook describes the Duomo in Firenze as being "Victorian Wallpaper". It was a British guidebook, and failed to recognise that it preceeded the Victorian era by many hundreds of years, but nevertheless, I take his point. To me it is like a tasteless wedding cake. The more decorations, colour, size is the objective. The dome of the Duomo is impressive, in conception and creation, but for the rest, the white, green and pink marble, all covered in black grime, and the entire city shrouded in poluted air; give me Pisa any time.
Try as Cheryl might, I refused to have my photograph taken with my hand up, as if to prop up the leaning tower. At least two hundred other people did on the day, which must now bring the total close to 750,000 people since the invention of photography. We spent some time just walking around the three monuments. The tower is now held up by a belt, about one third up from the base, which is connected to two sets of steel cables that stretch back over the roofs of the ajoining buildings to giant cement blocks sunk into the ground. The idea is to use these to stabilise the tower, while they dig underneath and pour huge new foundations. Ten or so years ago, when they conceived of the idea, they began digging only to discover that they had had the same idea last century. They came across cement, and when they began to remove it, the tower tilted another two centimeters. Now with the belt in place, they believe that they can dig a large enough foundation to resolve the problem forever. Considering that they now believe that the builders deliberatley built it on an angle, as the front facade of the Duomo and the Baptistry are also on angles, they may have their work cut out for another century.
We didn't enter the vast Camposanto (a marble cemetary) that runs almost the entire length of the square. Its frescoes were almost totally destroyed in WW2. Nevertheless it is an impressive building. We walked from the square down through the town to the River Arno. On the way, we passed the Medical School of the University. I considered dropping in to discuss a branch for the Medical Society Bookshop, but Ches wasn't impressed. It was an extremely hot, clowdless day, with no breeze to do any cooling. On the riverfront, being around 1.30 pm, it was deserted. Not a sole to be seen, except the odd tourist. Most of them would have been driven away by the heat anyway. When I say hot, I mean HOT! All the buildings along the river, on both sides, were already decorated with diamond shaped candle holders on every window shutter. They are on the insides, so they can light the candles from inside, then open the shutters out, to light up the city with candles. The battle of the bridge (Ponti de Mezzo), which we are now going to miss, is aparently on the last Sunday of June. A medieval event, the two sides of the city, divided by the Arno, compete to drive a wagon on the bridge, back to the other side. Rather than a "tug of war" it is a "push of war". All in costume, several hundred men from each side of the city, brace themselves backward against poles set into a wooden shaft connected to the wagon. They then have to try to push the wagon back across the bridge. The team that wins, switches off the power to the losing side of the city, and they have to light up with candles. Even the Santa Maria della Spina, was covered in scafolding with candle holders. This is the amazing tiny church with Gothic pinacles all over that sits alone on the southern bank just down from the bridge. It was built between 1230 and 1323, to house a spine from Christ's Crown of Thorns. It was moved from a site even closer to the river in 1871, because it was constantly being flooded.
We visited the Museum of Naval Archaeology. We had heard an American asking in the tourist information office about it, so when we discovered it on the north bank of the Arno, about half a kilometer down from the bridge, we decided to visit. Unfortunately it is very new, and all the explanatory boards are only in Italian. I had expected it to be concerned with the history of the city as a naval power. I expected some early Eutruscan material, but primarily medieval and renaissance material, from the period when Pisa was a significant player in Mediterranean trade. Even though Pisa is some 10 km inland, the Arno is wide and deep enough by this stage to handle fair sized craft, and they were a combination galley and sailing ship anyway. They had major shipbuilding and maintenance yards right in Pisa. The Museum was dissapointing. Most of the material related to one ship that they have salvaged, and that from the pre-Roman era. We couldn't read a sign, and just wandered from exhibit to exhibit. We headed back up town looking for somewhere for lunch, it now being after 2.00 pm.
From Ponte de Mezzo, we walked up Borgo Stretto. It is not a particularly wide street, for one of the main streets, but it is quite beautiful in that it is lined both sides by porticoes. They are wide, give plenty of shade from the sun, and we assume shelter from the rain in winter. There are plenty of excellent shops and bars, and being not far from the university, plenty of young people sitting out front of the cafes. We wandered off into a side lane Vicolo del Tinti, that ran parallel on the right, where we discovered a pizza restaurant, La Nuova Pizzaria del Bargo. They served the largest Pizzas we have ever seen, and took some time to get under control. When we arrived, the only other customers left were two women, who had a dog the size of a horse. He was kind of lying on the path beside the tables that occupied most of the lane, and not too many pedestrians tried to venture past. It is pretty common for people to take their dogs almost anywhere, and later we even encountered one on a vaporeto in Venice. On that occasion, the deck hand made a big deal about the dog not wearing a muzzle, and insisted it be fitted immediatly: otherwise fine! So this giant of a dog, docile as he was, lay in the laneway throughout lunch.
We next walked a couple of hundred metres to Piazza del Cavalieri. This was particularly intersting because facing the Piazza in a Palazzo and Church built by Duke Cosimo, to house the last crusading order of knights. The crusades were long over, but the Duke figured this was a good way to keep the sons of bankers and wealthy merchants placated, and raise some funds. The best they ever managed were the odd excursion against pirates in North Africa. The buildings are particularly ornate, and the "Orders" crest, a red cross, is evident on all the buildings. The palazzo was eventually converted into a special school by Napoleon, in 1810. Another building is notable because Dante featured it in the "Inferno", where the Pisan commander was walled in with his two sons because they believed he was scheming with the Genoese.
From here we walkedto the Botanic Gardens. This is its third incarnation, all within the walls of the city since 1595. It has always been part of the university, one of the oldest in Italy (1330). The university was particularly notable for enticing Galilao away from Padua University (they offered him more money than Padua), but more of that later. The gardens are loverly. Particularly liked the northern end of the gardens, where through the branches of the bigger trees, the Tower looms overhead. In the far southern end, one of the institutes fascade is entirely decorated in shells and mother of pearl. Totally over the top. More subdued is the gateway, also decorated in mother of pearl, but by this stage Ches was beginning to feel the heat, so we didn't linger. Ches's diary notes that "it was very, very hot" and that we returned to the car "to find that we hadn't been booked". I think she was dissapointed!!! (I have a reputation for finding very convenient parking spots).
Returning through Lucca wasn't as easy as the trip out. We were out of water, and I had said to Ches that I would find a fountain on the side of the road somewhere, to refill our water bottles. We freeze bottles nightly now, and drink them as they thaw and top up from fountains ether in towns or on the side of the road where the locals bring car loads of bottles to fill with spring water. They are fanatical about water. High levels of chlorine many years ago, turned them to bottled and spring water, and they still refuse to drink tap water. Anyway, I was lost on the wrong side of the railway line in Lucca. I figured that if I followed the line, eventually there had to be a crossing. Low and behold, there was also a fountain in a wall around the back of some factories, with a whole lot of industrial bins stacked in front. There were also locals filling their water bottles, so we did as well. Back along the railway line, we came across a street that crossed the railway line. Problem was, it was now peakhour and the traffic was thick. It took almost ten minutes to turn into the street, only to get caught at a crossing coming down to let a train through. Having negotiated this one, we needed to turn left 50 metres later, only to find that it was also down for a train, and the traffic was backed back around the corner. We had no choice but to turn right. OK, so we will work on the theory that if we keep turning left, we eventually have to come to the Lucca-Pescia road. We got to see a fair bit of the countryside over the next half hour. We earned our 7.00 pm gelato in Pescia. Just as well, because on driving back up the valley to Vellano, at Ponte de Serano, near the old paper mill, I encountered a large truck. I had to back up and off the road as far as possible to let him through. Crunch!!! We now have a crushed back right hand bumper.
Along the valley, several of the old timber mills have been converted to producing paper products such as serviettes and toilet tissue. They truck in (in large semi-trailers) recycled paper to make them, and then equally large trucks take the finished products off to the rest of Europe. These semis realy do take up the whole road in the valley, and you can hear them coming the full length of the valley as they sound their horn at every bend. We had been fortunate in the morning to be following one down the valley; which cleared the way for us, including a cement truck.
Because we had taken Mary and Julian for lunch on the Sunday, they reciprocated by Mary preparing a farwell dinner for us. While salmon isn't realy a part of Italian cuisine, they have taken to it in a big way over the past five or so years. Mary served angel hair pasta with salmon for starters, and followed with stuffed Guinea fowl (Faraona) with a side dish of Artichokes (Carciofi). This was washed down with beer, prosecca, and a "keg" of red wine. Well, it seemed like a "keg". Mary was keen for advise on how to either market to academics looking for a "sabatical" base, or find someone to enter into an agreement to share the property till such time as they have to "retire". Basically, they don't have anyone to leave the property to, and need both financial assistance plus some help in maintaining the olives etc. Julien's diabetes had reduced his appetite so much, that the red wine flattened him. We returned to our apartment at 11.45, at the end of a very tireing week. Mary sent us off with a teatowel embroidered with olives, and a bottle of their olive oil.
