Pisa: Day of Disasters

Pisa in the rain.

 
 On Saturday morning we woke up bright and early, eager to get our Italy adventures underway.  The three of us headed to the lobby to wait for our fourth companion.....and waited. And waited. And waited.
     While we were waiting, we postulated that perhaps she had been carried off by Gypsies, or beamed up to an alien spaceship, or accidentally fallen into a hole that led to the center of the Earth.  It turns out that she had, in fact, slept through all of her alarms, but I personally prefer my explanations.  Thus the fourth member of our crew missed her flight (and ended up joining us that night in Florence).  Hence the first disaster.
 
    My two wakeful companions and I then flew into Pisa for some touristy explorations of the Court of Miracles, which houses the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a lovely cathedral, baptistery, and cemetery.  We took some stereotypical photos and wandered through.

The baptistery, a lovely building with the most marvelous acoustics.

     The first building we peeked into was the baptistery.  The outside was lovely, but the inside was rather plain.  We were slightly disappointed until one of the museum guard guys started to sing in it.  I cannot describe how wonderful the acoustics were--you could hear the sound bounce around the dome for at least 10 seconds after he finished singing.  Unfortunately, visitors were strictly forbidden to try it out, but before I die I am determined to sing in there.

      The next place we entered was a museum of frescoes (wall paintings).  It was very interesting, but many of the frescoes were so faded that you could barely see the original forms.

Leaning on the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Classic.

    We took loads of touristy pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but climbing up to the top proved outrageously expensive, so we decided to forego that part.

The Cathedral.

   
     The Cathedral was absolutely gorgeous and ornate--every ceiling, wall, and floor was beautifully and intricately decorated.  After all the fantastically decorated ceilings I've seen in Italy, I cannot believe how poorly they are treated in America.  Slap some swirly plaster on and they're good to go? Never!  Ceilings are the canvasses for the most beautiful works of art I've ever seen.

The Leaning tower again.  It definitely leans.

The Court of Miracles.

     The cemetery was puzzling because at first we couldn't tell where the deceased were.  Then we noticed the floor....it turns out that the entire floor was made out of gravestones.  My two companions were cautious and walked on the very thin markers between graves, but I had no such qualms.

The large rectangular shapes are graves.

One of the more macabre graves in the place.

    I was extremely excited to learn that Fibonacci, the famous mathematician and originator of the Fibonacci sequence, was buried in this graveyard.

Paying homage to Fibonacci.

    After pacing the courtyard in the rain some more, we headed to the train station to depart for our hostel in Florence.  Thence came the second disaster.
   As we waited to get on the train, a large group of Gypsies were disembarking.  They blocked the whole entrance and caused something of a commotion, with everyone pushing past everybody else to get on.  After we got onto the train, one of my fellow travelers noticed that her purse was unzipped....and her wallet and passport case was gone.  She lost everything.  Passport, driver's license, debit card, Garda card, over €250, Trinity ID--everything.  We then understood why Irish people all hate Gypsies, and spent the rest of the trip with purses triple-zipped and under our coats, and our passports and other important documents in a very nerdy waist-pocket that buckled under shirts.

    Despite that very unfortunate event, we made it to Florence on time, checked into a hostel in the middle of Florence, and determined to get to the US Consulate as soon as humanly possible.