Easy Pisa

Obviously, Pisa is the home of one of the world's most famous landmarks, the famous Torre Pendente or Leaning Tower. This does attract the attention, and a climb up it is well worthwhile, despite the steep admission price (€15, or €17 if booked online in advance). Yet this is not the only attraction in the immediate vicinity. The cathedral precints, in which the campanile is set, is a harmonius and elegant confection of pale marble. The setting of the entire area is even more stunning than the delicate tower in isolation - though it is often crammed with tourists posing for the camera by doing the 'Holding Up The Tower' position. The Piazza del Duomo is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. However it is better known by its alternate name: 'Piazza dei Miracoli', 'The Square of Miracles'. It was Gabrielle D'Annunzio, the one-eyed syphalitic poet who quixotically seized the port of Fiume in Italy's name in 1920 (against the wishes of the Italian state) who first used this phrase, and it fits. Other Italian cities have a Piazza del Duomo; only Pisa has a Piazza dei Miracoli.

The straight lines of the Duomo itself are also worth an investigation, though the bizarre Baptistery, a barbarous crown at the far end of the cathedral, can be safely missed in my opinion. The classical cloisters of the Camposanto to the north of the square are also refreshingly elegant, and they harbour three magnificently insane frescoes by Buffalmacco, all jam-packed with incident and detail.

Two museums flank the square. The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo is more engaging than I first expected, and I would recommend a visit prior to entering the Duomo or Camposanto, to help you make some sense of what you will see. The Museo del Sinopie is devoted to the red outlines of frescoes discovered during renovation. I gained nothing here. It might be a useful stop for someone studying art history, but I was in and out in five minutes. Its one highlight is a 3D computer display of the Camposanto cloisters - don't forget to put on 3D glasses, or you will get a horrific headache trying to make sense of it.

The remainder of the city of Pisa lies to the south of the Piazza. The Piazza is in many ways isolated out by the north-western gate. Its location is puzzling until you realise that the square was once bounded by the River Auser, a tributary of the Arno, on two sides. Pisa's sheltered harbour was hence located nearby, and the Piazza del Duomo was as grand a frontispiece for the proud people of this maritime city as was the Piazetta for Venice. The Auser now no longer runs past the Piazza, and the sea has retreated several miles since Pisa's heyday in the 11th-14th centuries.

Quick Tips:

There is a confusing array of tickets for the buildings that make up the Piazza dei Miracoli. I ended up paying €25 - 15 for an ascent of the Tower, 10 for access to the other five sites (Duomo, Baptistery, Camposanto, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, and Museo del Sinopie). Here follows my opinion of what you should actually pay for, and perhaps more importantly, what you should not.

Firstly, €15 for a half-hour climb up the Leaning Tower is imperative. Groups ascend in 30 minute blocks, and you have to be slotted in to the next free one. Turning up at 9.30 on a weekday morning in March I was able to be put in to the 10:00 slot. Arriving later in the day at Easter or in summer you may be unlucky. Booking online 15 days in advnce for €17 may be recommended - see http://boxoffice.opapisa.it/Torre/index.jsp for details.

For the other five sites, you can buy a ticket allowing access to one (€5), two (€6), or all five (€10). In my view the Museo del Sinopie and Baptistery can be ignored, so specify a two-site ticket for the Museo dell'Opera and the Camposanto for €6. You can then get an extra ticket to allow access to the Duomo itself - this is €2 from 1st March to 31st October, and free through the winter. So you get access to the three good sites for a mere six or eight euros, as opposed to the ten I paid.

The monuments of the Piazza dei Miracoli are open from 9.00 to 18.00 in March, 8.00 to 20.00 April - September, 9.00 - 19.00 in October, 10.00 - 17.00 November to February (except for 25th December to 6th January when they extend the opening time by one hour either way). See www.opapisa.it for more details.

One other cost-saving tip I would make is not to buy ANYTHING froma vendor around the square. Head back into the town and prices drop dramatically. For example, postcards were for sale at €0.80 each around the Piazza; exactly the same cards were on sale in newsagents on the Lungarno beside the river Arno to the south for only €0.30.

Best Way To Get Around:

For Europeans Pisa is probably easier to visit than Florence. Florence has the larger airport, but the dinky little Aeroport Gallileo Galilei in Pisa has boomed recently by becoming a hub for budget airlines. From the UK alone flights head to Pisa from four or five regional airports using low-cost carriers such as Ryanair and Easyjet. I flew to Pisa from Liverpool (a mere £18.81), and flew back to London Stansted (£31.86). Terravision coaches to Florence connect with Ryanair flights, but it seems a shame to miss out on Pisa. And certainly if you fly from Liverpool you end up landing after dark, so a night in Pisa makes perfect sense.

The airport is located just south of the city (you can see it from the top of the Leaning Tower),and buses run the route regularly, though they seem to stop in the evening. Rather than paying for a taxi upon landing, head right to a kiosk where you can buy train tickets to Pisa Centrale for €1.10. Though I admit I was a bit nonplussed in waiting 40 minutes for the next train, only to discover that the ride only takes about three minutes. Trains also run regularly to Florence from both Pisa Centrale and Pisa Aeroporto. From Centrale to Florence cost me €5.70 from the fantastic easy-to-use automatic machines that Italian stations all seem to have, and the journey takes around 1 hour 20 minutes.

In Pisa itself, unless you ahve mobility problems, walk. From the station on the southern edge of town to the Piazza dei Miracoli on the very northern edge takes around thirty minutes at a leisurely stroll, giving you plenty of time to take in your surroundings. If you head straight north up the Corso Italia, cross the Arno, then up the Borgo Stretto you cannot fail to see the signs directing you towards the Leaning Tower.

You can 'knock off' Pisa in four hours this way - thirty minute walk each way, and three hours around the Piazza.

From the outside Hotel Terminus & Plaza looks pretty groggy. Mind you, I did turn up at gone ten pm, and some work they were having done to the doors probably didn't help. It is located on what was seemingly a deserted side-street. It is well south of the river, in the more modern part of town, a thirty minute walk from the Piazza dei Miracoli. However, it is a mere 50m from the train station. As I was arriving late at night and would be departing by train the next day, its location outside the historic core made sense to me. For this night I wanted convenience, not atmosphere.

Inside the hotel is much nicer - stained glass and a bar. My room was fairly small. It was mostly taken up by a huge double bed. But it was clean. The ensuite bathroom with shower was particularly clean. It even smelt floral (somewhat cloyingly so in truth). Another slight gripe was that the room was overly warm, and though there was an air conditioning unit on the wall, I could not find any way to operate it. Decorations were comprised of a massive mirror, two prints ('La Primavera' and an old map of North America), and a satellite TV showing 'House' dubbed into Italian.

Come the morning, breakfast was a good spread - five types of cereal, two different juices, a whole host of pre-packed croissants and pastries, and a weird apple and blueberry mulch thing.

There were a few niggles with the room - the heating, and the overly-strong disinfectant used mainly. However, as I required only a bed for the night and somewhere to leave my backpack while I checked out Pisa's historic core the next day I cannot complain too much. And when you take into account its proximity to the train station, it is very convenient. According to the tariff on my room wall, a room is €120 a night. That is a ridiculous price for what you get. Fortunately, I was only charged €60. I booked through www.venere.com which often seems to have rooms for less than the published price.

More details can be found at www.hotelterminusplaza.it.

A visit to the Camposanto, the serene white-marble cemetary of Pisa, should not be missed. It does not resemble a cemetary in the traditional sense. Instead it is an elegant cloister surrounding a narrow strip of turf. This earth was reputedly brought back from Golgotha, and was hence 'holy'. Hence the name: 'Camposanto' - 'Holy Field'. Burial here thus provided a leg-up to heaven for those wealthy enough to afford a plot.

The long colonnade sadly took a direct hit from Allied bombs during the Second World War and hence is rather bare at first glance. Only patches of its once fine medieval frescoes remain in situ - a splash of turquoise sky, a glimpse of a Pisan cityscape. The older grave memorials are reused Roman sarcophagi or battered stonework. These are much more atmospheric than the Canova-lite marbles of the last few centuries. Though to give them their due, there are a ciuple of eye-catching sculpted busts of fearsomely moustachioed and mutton-chopped civic notables who would not look out of place in a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta.

On the far side of the entrance a door leads into the fresco room. Here you can see three massive works, all by Buffalmacco, all full of famous detail. The most famous (to your left) is The Triumph Of Death. Out of a heap of Burberry-clad dead are yawned their naked souls, only to be seized upon my mouse-eared demons. A scythe-weilding hag leads them on. At one point the soul of a pudgy bare-buttocked fellow is the prize of an aerial tug-of-war between a bat-winged devil and a kingfisher-like angel (a 'kingfisher of men'?). To one side are assorted oddments: corpses writhing with snakes, a hare, a man milking a deer, and a hunting party with half-a-dozen different breeds of dogs.

A last judgement follows, Archangel Michael to the fore. Hell is literally around the corner, dominated by a smug spotty-geeen Satan. Around him the souls of the damned are tortured. Snakes coil around their faces like blindfolds and bite them on the nipples. One poor sod is roasted on a spit that prtrudes from gob and anus.

The final piece is the Thebiad. More detail here of the eventful and rather jolly-looking life that awaits your average believer. Here you can see a bearded and wild-haired hermit guarded by lions; a saint rebuking two stereotypical demons; a holy man stumbling upon a skull whilst out walking in the woods and giving it a good old poke with his staff.

There are couches for you to sit on - a good thing as there is an awful lot of detail crammed into these dramatic and room-sized frescoes. In many ways it makes sense to visit the Museo dell'Opera first to get a view on what you are supposed to be looking at here. A joint ticket covers both locations, obtained from the biglietteria to the right of the Camposnato entrance along the northern edge of the Piazza dei Miracoli.

The Cathedral of Pisa is startlingly pretty in isolation. One feels sorry for it having the famous Torre Pendente plonked beside it, and the ornate barbarous crown of the Baptistery at the far end. In comparison the Duomo fades into normalcy, which is a shame. With its precise angles and clean lines it almost looks like a cardboard model rather than a real masonry building. Founded in 1064 following Pisan victory against the Saracens, this 'temple of snow-white marble' is lovely. The western end, where the entrance and exit are, most clearly exhibits the famous green banding and four galleried levels, as well as some gilden mosaics.

Inside it is dark. The brooding 17th-century oil paintings don't do a whole heap to lighten the mood either. Despite the sign by the door stating that photography is prohibited, the place is lit up by camera flash after camera flash. There does not seem to be anyone inside to enforce a sense of propriety.

Columns march down the nave. Where they cross over the transept they are revealed to support a passageway (a 'clerestory' I think it is called) bridging the gap. In the right transept you will find the swaddled corpse of St. Ranieri, his mouldering feet sticking out. Ranieri is the patron saint of Pisa (and not one of the four managers Chelsea have had in the past four seasons).

The underneath of the dome is a vertiginous trompe l'oeil, ehile behind the altar is a large Byzantine-style Christ Pantocrator blessing the congregation. This mosaic of JC is by Cimabue, Giotto's tutor. The curve of the apse makes Christ look quite pudgy against the gold background, a touch of the Buddhas almost.

Not to be missed is an ornate pulpit by Pisano, the upper band so deeply incised and so intricately carved that they look more like an encrustatiion of coral than anything you could imagine a craftsman coming up with. Sculpted figures and lions adorn the columns that support it. Look out for the blank-faced queen with two impish children suckling from her teats, and a somewhat dog-legged Hercules, a mish-mash of the classical with the Christian.

Opposite the entrance to the Duomo is the Baptistery. It is a marvellous circular onion-topped confection crowned with a spiky diadem. Entrance here is separate from the Cathedral. And honestly, I wouldn't bother. What it promises from the outside, it does not fulfil once inside. There is a fountain-sized immersion font, another pulpit (this one by Pisano's father and not quite so impressively intricate), and a bare lemon-shaped dome. You miss nothing by not visiting.

Nations are all too often summed up by a shorthand image. Greece? The Acropolis, a symbol of learning and civilisation. Britain? The grand clock-tower of Big Ben, order and science atop the 'Mother of Parliaments'. The US? Obviously the Statue of Liberty. And Italy? It has to be the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

In many ways it is a shame that a country with so much to see and admire is mentally linked with what is essentially a bit of bodged craftsmanship. After all, it was here that Galileo Galilei conducted his experiments. Yet, no matter how many images you may have seen of the infamous Torre Pendente does not prepare you for the thrill of seeing viewing it with your own eyes. Despite its unplanned-for tilt the tower is quietly majestic. Though certainly my immediate reaction as I caught my first glimpse of it as I approached from the east (where the southward lean was hence most apparent) was that the Tower just looked *wrong* - humourously so. It is completely out of kilter with the straight lines of the cathedral behind it. Moreover, what is clearly apparent is that it started to lean during construction, but that its architects and masons kept on going, slightly offsetting each subsequent tier from the previous, so that the whole thing has a perceptible banana curve. The belfry on top sits at such a strong angle it looks like a rakishly-tipped top-hat.

Yet somehow, while the amusement value of the tower never diminishes (witness all the tourists contorting themselves into weird tai chi-like poses atop the square's bollards for the obligatory 'Holding up the Leaning Tower' photo...), it does have a certain majesty and beauty. This is more apparent closer up, where you can appreciate the pale grey marble used, the slenderness of the columns ringing each tier of the campanile, and the the carved flesh-eating gargoyles. Had it not slumped this construction might have been a good-looking cathedral bell-tower, but not a world-famous one. You can hence understand the decision made during renovation - correct the lean a little, prevent it from toppling (throughout the 19th and 20th centuries the angle of lean increased at an accelerating pace), but leave it still noticeably canted. The Non-Leaning Tower of Pisa wouldn't have much of a lure to it, would it?

Now that the preservation works are over and done with (all that marks their passing is a few strong cables attached to the tower) tourists can once more ascend the Torre Pendente. Tickets are bought from the office in the buildings along the north wall of the Piazza and cost €15. Dear yes, but you are paying for the chance to visit one of the world's most famous monuments, one that requires substantial upkeep (in more ways than one!). For this you are put into a group for a timed slot (every half hour). Bear in mind that at peak times all the slots may be booked solid. I turned up at 9.30 on a weekday morning in March, and so was fitted in to the next group at 10.00. If you are visiting Pisa in summer it may well be worth paying a bit extra (€17) and booking your tour online in advance from http://boxoffice.opapisa.it/Torre/index.jsp - tickets must be booked at least 15 days in advance, which is a hassle, but certainly worthwhile to ensure you do not miss out. Bags must be left in lockers at the ticket office. Children under the age of 8 are prohibited; those between 8 and 12 must be held by the hand by an adult at all times, those between 12 and 18 have to be accompanied by an adult.

If the price is steep, so is the tower. At the allotted hour your guide lets you descend into the tower lobby and mount the spiral staircase. It reels like a ship upon the ocean. At certain points the climber tips over to the interior of the tower; half a revolution later and you are leaning against the outer wall. It is interesting to note how the worn depressions in the steps, eroded by countless feet over countless years, likewise weaves from left to right to compensate for the tower's angle. Restoration is still ongoing - men crouch on the pillared balconies using tiny tools, the sort of drills a dentist would use.

At the top another staircase leads up to the belfry, and then another even narrower one up to the very apex. Here you get birds-eye views over the remarkable Piazza dei Miracoli, over Pisa to the south, and towards some brooding dramatic hills to the east. I can see now how these feuding Tuscan towns kept their independence from each other for so long.

Ascending the Tower is expensive for thirty minutes, there is no denying it. However we are talking about one of the world's most famous buildings here. I would recommend an ascent anyway for the marvellous view over the UNESCO-protected heart of Pisa. The Leaning Tower grows on you. It might raise a smile when you first see it, yet weirdly it is no less stunning for that. And don't we all want a beauty with a sense of humour?

I fully admit that I went to the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo only because it was on the combined ticket I had bought from the bigliettera. Actually it was pretty engaging. The ground floor has several noteworthy treasures. One of the best is a bronze griffin that used to sit atop the Duomo (a replica now perches up there). Arabesque etchings reveal its Islamic provenance; indeed, the Pisans captured it from the Saracens. There is also a pleasant 'Madonna of the Colloquoy', chatting away with the baby JC. I also liked two small Limoges chests, presents from Richard the Lionheart of England, and a Madonna carved from ivory.

The second floor is less immediately appealing, starting off with copies of those gloomy oil paintings you can see in the cathedral. In total contrast are displays of the sort of glitzy liturgical vestments that would make Liberace swoon. Then you get to good stuff - some remarkable late 15th century wooden marquetry, some Roman finds (including an unmistakable bust of Julius Caesar), and some illuminated song books. One parchment has an image of medieval Pisa at the top.

There is also a room showing reproductions of the frescoes from the Camposanto. This includes frescoes that are no longer visible. If anythging, I think it would be better to see them here first before visiting the full-size works by Buffalmacco in the cemetary, so you know what you are meant to be looking at. The room itself is also lovingly frescoed with square columns and lunettes. An alcove off the salon is illustrated with swagged curtains.

One last attraction is a plain balcony, which gives a marvellous view of the Tower and Duomo over cypress and laurel.

The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo is not entirely enthralling, and does have its dull moments, but there is enough here to entertain, teach and inspire to make it well worth a look.