There's Only One Good Thing About Pisa...

So Sunday morning we took a day trip from Florence to the neighboring town Pisa, which is most famous for its "Leaning Tower" that was constructed to be the bell tower of the beautiful Cathedral of Pisa. This sight was pretty much the only cool part of the day, not to be a debbie-downer but the town just doesn't have much to it...and also it was about 100 degrees and we had to dress conservatively for the Cathedral so I was wearing a black maxi skirt that morphed into a volcano-esque hotbox surrounding my legs. Also, our lesson for the day was about the mathematician Galileo so that didn't exactly raise my interest level in the town. But the Leaning Tower was definitely worth seeing, and the Cathedral was strikingly beautiful against the cloudless sky. The bell tower (Leaning Tower) is really only famous because it leans, but it still was fascinating to see it in person since I had heard about it all my life.

This is a view of some of the houses in Pisa along the Arno River (same river as in Florence). 

                                     

A pretty chapel we went into with our teacher. 

I found the image of this Spongebob balloon stuck up in the open window of this ancient Pisan apartment to be the essence of much of modern Italy in how there is a constant juxtaposition of old and new

This is the house where the famous mathematician Galileo was born, and pretty much the only reason our teacher took us to Pisa... 

This was our first "classroom" location of the day where we learned about the history of Pisa while sitting on benches in this shady park. 

Pisa has many markets of all sorts of goods that occupy the city streets and as we were walking through them we caught our first glimpse of the Pisa Cathedral. 

This is the Pisa Cathedral in all its stunning glory...

Our second "classroom" of the day where we learned about Galileo's life was sitting in the much-needed shade of the Cathedral on the steps in the left of this picture. 

The Baptistery of the Pisa Cathedral. 

And now onto the best part about Pisa, the Leaning Tower!! 

Roomate picture in front of the Tower! (it looks like were falling to the left but I promise we're standing straight and it 's really just the tower...) 

This is the base of the tower, you can really see how how much the base is leaning...

You can't go to Pisa without getting the classic tourist picture of pretending to "hold up" the Leaning Tower so here's mine... 

The whole motley crew in front of the Tower!! 

The last thing we, very luckily, ran into by chance in Pisa is this famous wall mural by Keith Haring.

So Pisa...very hot, the tower definitely leans, and the Cathedral is beautiful!