Jim and I finally went to Pisa last Friday. We’ve been planning on going for awhile but for one reason or another (weather, papers, landlady coming over), we’ve been putting it off. Last Monday, we decided that hell-or-high-water we were going to go. We ordered some chemicals at the lab and they weren’t in yet so we were taking Friday off and going sightseeing.

The weather forecast was conflicting. Weather.com warned of rain, but the TV forecast just said overcast in Pisa. We didn’t really trust weather.com because the forecast changes from day to day there. We’ll check the 10 day prediction one day and it says 60s and sunny for the next ten day. Check it the next day, and there is rain for the first five days, then sun. Check it again, and the rain is moved to the last 5 days. So our confidence in the ability of the weather.com people was low. We decided to trust the TV forecast.

Unfortunately, we had to contend with the whole “high-water” part. Friday was the worst day of weather that we have had the entire time we’ve been in Italy. When we left Florence, it was overcast. That’s OK. It won’t be too hot. By the time the train pulled into Pisa, it was sprinkling. When we got off the train, it was raining and rained steadily for the entire day.

It’s a pretty typical Tuscan city. The buildings are all pink or yellow. The streets are narrow and the sidewalks covered in dog poop.

That didn’t stop us from walking up to the Field of Miracles, where all of the touristy stuff is. You can see the infamous tower behind us.

The Tower has just been opened again so people can go up, but we decided against it. It’s 15 euros each to climb it and our book warned that it was slippery in the rain. So we just stood at the base and looked up:

Yup. It’s a tower. Lots of cool engineering to try to get it stabilized. You can read about it on the web.

It was actually a pretty day to go to Pisa though. The rain kept the sane people at home. It was just the people on a schedule and idiots like us that came out in the rain. I really felt sorry for the people who were there on a schedule. We saw lots of people dragging their suitcases around in the rain. I almost pulled out the camera, but thought better of it. Some of them were kind of touchy and yelling at each other. I didn’t want to get punched.

The Tower was the least interesting part of Pisa though. We bought a combo ticket to get into all of the sights at the Field of Miracles. In this installment, the Duomo and the Baptistry. Tune in tomorrow for the Cemetery, the Sinopias museum and pictures from the train.

I didn’t realize that Duomo just means dome. There are duomos on the churches in a lot of the cities around here. Here is a dork outside the Pisa Duomo:

Someone should tell that idiot to use her umbrellas. I was hoping that if I stopped using the umbrella that Nature would get the point and stop raining. Didn’t work. I should have appealed to a different power. (The tower looks like it is trying to look over the shoulder of the church. “Hi, whatcha doing? Can I be in the picture?”)

The inside is really amazing. It was the longest nave in Europe for many years.

The picture is entirely in mosaic. There is definitely a middle eastern feel to the decorations in the church.

For Christmas, I got myself… I mean Jim, a tripod for the camera. This was so we could have pictures of the two of us when we go on vacation. For some reason, Jim just laughs and shakes his head when I want a picture of the two of us in front of a dead guy in a glass box. He’s the patron saint of Pisa (the dead guy in the box, not Jim). He’s wearing a shirt made of hair in that box. Itchy. Well, not for him. He’s dead. At least I hope so.

The pulpit in the Duomo. Absolutely amazing! Every inch is covered in carvings. In the day, the marble was actually covered in gold and colored paste. It must have been lurid and loud and stunning. My guidebook says that most of the marble statues were colored when they were completed. I’ve always wondering who thought that the white looked better.

Somewhere in the church is the lantern that inspired Galileo. I looked for it, but it was like hunting a needle in a haystack. There were lanterns hanging from the ceiling everywhere. So just imagine it.

On to the baptistry. Through the rain. (Appeals to a higher power didn’t result in anything.)

Another dork not using his umbrella. This time, in front of the Baptistry.

I had to stop and take a picture of the carved door posts:

I thought it looked cool. Then we went inside to get out of the rain. And to see the sights. But mostly to get out of the rain.

Another pulpit by the same guys who did the one in the Duomo. This is an earlier version. Not nearly as ornate. Jim is once again humoring me.

You can go to the second level in the baptistry and look down. This is a view of the Duomo and Tower from the stairs. Again, I can just imagine the Tower saying “Hi! Can you see me OK in the picture?” (Jim often thinks I should be committed.)

View from above:

You can see the middle eastern influence in the mosaics on the floor. The building was designed so that there is a 10 second echo. On the hour and half hour, a guard calls for silence and demonstrates the acoustics of the building. That was the coolest thing. He could sing chords all by himself just taking advantage of the echo. After that, there wasn’t much else to see there. It is pretty much a big round room with a baptismal font in the middle.

Some of the city walls still exist:

The grass was amazingly green. But it was still raining. Coming tomorrow to a computer near you - “Pisa, the Sequel”.