I have so many pictures from Italy last year and so few posted. Here are some of me after vi had climbed all the stairs up to the top of the leaning tower of Pisa.

We just had to go to Pisa. Erik put his foot down and said that we had to try to get into the tower (because I didn’t want to queue for ages for all the museums in Florence) because we had to see the inside of just one thing. And lucky for us both, there was no queue. No queue! Because we arrived just 1,5 hours before they closed, so everyone had left. And it had been raining that day. But we were very happy. Before we went to see the tower we had lunch, met my cool friend Silvia who owns a comic book shop in the old town of Pisa.

Handy hooks for bags on the wall.

Super high roof.

Getting into Italian comics.

Silvia, the coolest Italian.

Rain with sand from Sahara.

The Nokia GPS led us safely through Pisa to the tower.

See! It was actually leaning! I was surprised, I have to admit. I didn’t think it was that leaning.

It is the bell tower of the cathedral.

 

Erik giving it a helping hand.

Me being jolly.

No queue, no people.

Macro lenses are wonderful for detail shots high up on buildings.

This is the inside the tower. There is nothing in it, just air and a lot of things to keep it from toppling over.

 

A guide told us about the history of the tower. The true contractor is not known, because he stopped all work after finishing the three first floors and was never heard of again. But 50 years later someone else thought it would be cool to finish the tower, so they did. It used to lean more, but they have straightened it a bit. They could make it completely straight, but that wouldn’t be economical…

 

The only thing in the tower is the staircase. And it was totallyl weird to walk it, both up and down. You can see Erik standing straight and the tower leaning. We were constantly compensating for the leaning and walking on the left or right of the steps. Superstrange.

 

 

At the top of the tower, with the bells still in use (Italians are good at using things that are old when they still work, instead of building something new).

Pisa.

Cathedral from above.

We were not the first to walk these steps.

  

There were two fences around the top, one in ordinary height (waist height) and one two meter high. We guessed it was because on the “down side” it felt like it would not catch you if you actually tripped and fell.

There were 30 min left before everything closed, so we went in and looked at the cathedral too.

As they say in Italy (I guess): “more is more”.

This is a detail of the roof, maybe 40 meters above. Did I tell you that a macro lens is also wanderful for taking pictures of roofs in high churches? Well they are.