From Milan to Tuscany, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Yesterday we traveled from Normandy back to Paris, and took the train to Milan. Today, we drove into Tuscany, on the shore of the Tyrrhenian Sea, to Pisa and through Florence, Italy.


It was the first time any of us had seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa.


And we spent most of our time perfecting our "holding it up" pose.


Or "pushing it down".


Leaning on the Leaning Tower of Pisa.


Landon can hold it up one-handed.


But it was a lot heavier for me.


Jolene had no problem keeping it from falling.


My third time to Italy, and Jolene's second, but neither of us had been to Pisa before.


The tower's construction began in the 12th century, but it immediately began to lean from the weak composition of soil on one side. Construction lasted 200 years, and stopped several times as they tried to straighten the tower with new design features on each newly added level.


But nothing worked, until just 30 years ago when they removed some soil from the opposite side and allowed that side to sink as well, which righted the tower a little, and stabilized it (but it still leans quite a bit).






You can really see the amount of sinking that has occurred when you look at the base of the tower.


But from right under it, you wouldn't be able to distinguish the lean much at all.


Here the boys are standing on the leaning side, so if it fell it would be right on top of us. It was on this side of the tower in ~1590 AD, that Galileo (from the top of the tower) dropped two spherical weights of different masses to prove his theory that the acceleration due to gravity was independent of mass (discounting air friction, of course) - which at the time disproved Aristotle's reigning theory that gravitational acceleration was dependent on mass. While Galileo never mentioned doing the experiment from the tower in his notes, several students of his recounted the experiment, and since the edge of the tower on the top level is ~4 meters offset from the center at the bottom, it would make sense that Galileo (who was working in Pisa in that era) would use the tower for the experiment. He would have dropped the weights from directly above where the boys' heads are in this picture.


The surrounding town square has a uniquely historic look to it as well.


I like this shot, as it captured several ladies posing on the right, each holding up the tower for their pose.


The baptistry, as part of the square on the Campo dei Miracoli "Field of Miracles", where the tower is also located (in the background of the pic).


The cathedral on the square, from the Field of Miracles.


Another view of the baptistry.


Prior to Pisa, we stayed the night in Milan. Here is Milan's Grand Central Station - I don't know what the big apple means, sitting out front, but a lot of people were taking pictures of it.


We finished the day driving to one of the Tuscany hill towns south of Florence, and stayed in a hillside bungalow, listening to the heavy rain from a passing thunderstorm much of the evening.


Here's our ride for the drive all over Italy this next week. It is much smaller than our rented Volvo wagon we had while touring Paris (and much slower). This little Fiat can just barely fit us four and our luggage, and is very, very "cozy".


No more space, and the boys are sitting with luggage in the back seat as well.


Dinner overlooking the Tuscany hills.


Tomorrow we are off to Rome, to do....well, whatever the Romans do. After showing the boys ~1,000 year old structures for the last week, now we are off to tour some  ~ 2,000 year old sites.