Pisa
Most travelers know of Pisa thanks to its famous landmark, the Leaning Tower. Even so, there is more to see here than the bell tower, especially if you are interested in historic churches. The Piazza dei Miracoli (“Square of Miracles), where the tower is located, also is home to the city's cathedral.
The Leaning Tower
No, it wasn't supposed to lean like that. Pisa's bell tower was meant to stand straight as a proud man's spine, but alas, its poorly laid foundation and the lousy dirt underneath left it listing after just three tiers were completed in the 1170s. Today, after centuries of being eased into new positions by gravity and manmade forces, the tower stands some three feet higher on one side than the other. It leans at an angle of about four degrees, having endured more than a few schemes to keep it stabilized.
The most recent effort was in 1990, when the tower was closed to the public and its angle was altered by removing some of the dirt underneath one side. That and other stabilization efforts made the tower stable enough to be reopened to the public in 2001. According to engineers at the time, it will be safe for at least another 300 years. In 2008, after more dirt was removed from beneath one side, engineers revised the previous estimate, saying it will be stable for another 200 years. Only time will tell which set of workers is correct — but both agreed to leave the tower with a tilt.
Only a limited number of people are allowed up into the tower at a time, for obvious reasons of weight and stability. If you want to make sure you're among them, you can reserve tickets for a predetermined time slot from any online vendor who deals with tours of Italy, or buy them in the mornings at the museums in the piazza. Go early to avoid the rush. Combination tickets will get you into the tower, the cathedral, and other piazza sites.
Piazza dei Miracoli
Beyond the Leaning Tower, Piazza dei Miracoli offers the Duomo, Baptistery, and Camposanto, an interesting combination of churches and cemetery with beautiful architecture and artwork.
Duomo
The Duomo is a Medieval cathedral whose construction began in 1063. A massive fire in the 1500s destroyed many of the Medieval artworks that used to be housed inside, but the artistic portions of the cathedral itself were either restored, rebuilt, or replaced. Like the Leaning Tower, which was built on similarly lousy soil, the cathedral lists — but not nearly as much as the world-famous landmark.
Fact
The Leaning Tower of Pisa almost met its demise during World War II, when the Allied forces discovered that invading Nazi troops were using it as an observation post. As the story goes, a U.S. Army sergeant had the authority to call an artillery strike, but he withheld, thus preserving the tower as the monument it is today.
Baptistery
Opposite the Duomo is the Baptistery, a round, Romanesque building dedicated to St. John the Baptist. It's the largest baptistery in all of Italy, and if you count the statue of St. John the Baptist at the top, the baptistery is a hair taller than the Leaning Tower. There's not much artwork to see inside, but the sheer volume of the baptistery's interior makes it worth a look.
Camposanto
This walled cemetery dates to the thirteenth century and was originally filled with impressive frescoes. Unfortunately, the wooden roof was destroyed and many of the frescoes were seriously damaged during Allied bombings on the Nazi-occupied structure in 1944. In recent decades, great pains have been taken to restore the artwork.
There's a room where you can see historic photographs of the frescoes both before and after the bombing, and a few of the damaged pieces are still on view. Also, some of the funerary monuments in the cloisters are worth seeing because they inspired some of Pisa's Medieval sculptures.
