The train arrived just about on time, and I went straight to find the Left Luggage to leave my case. Then across Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II (currently being rebuilt) 200 yards from the station, and down the pedestrianised Corso Italia to the river Arno. So far, so ordinary.
But the other side of the river has a very attractive sweep of palaces and other large buildings that is mostly unspoilt by traffic and signs. I crossed the Ponte di Mezzo and carried on through the almost deserted small streets north of the river to the almost deserted central square of Mediaeval Pisa, Piazza dei Cavalieri, which has a number of large buildings (including the Palazzo dei Cavalieri) with painted or sgraffito facades.
Then though more small streets to Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles), the area containing the Duomo, its Baptistry, and the Leaning Tower, all packed closely together and looking in excellent condition. Here, as the Rough Guide nicely puts it, “the tourist maelstrom can be fierce”. And it is, though the big three are surrounded by lawns which people are not supposed to walk on; mostly they are kept off by a large man with a whistle.
Most of the tourists want to take each other’s picture pretending to push over the Tower, or hold it up, so half of them stand along the edge of the grass with their hands in the air while their other halves try to get the camera in the right place. So there were not too many visitors to the buildings themselves. I headed just for the Duomo, or Cathedral as it’s referred to here, which the Rough Guide describes as “breathtaking”.
And it is, and certainly if you judge it on the number of columns: 64 in the nave alone, in four rows. Narrower columns on the outside, making two narrow side-aisles each side of the nave. Splendid mosaics over the altar in the apse. All in remarkable condition considering it’s a thousand years old. Fairly dark inside, so that coming out to the pure white exterior was rather a shock. I won’t post yet another church interior photo, though, but something more familiar:
Well, I’d spent about three hours in Pisa, including the time to walk across the city and back (about 25 minutes each way), and I think it was well worth breaking my journey here. I’d cynically expected it to be spoiled by an excess of tourists, but that wasn’t the case at all.
