Pisa

We thought once we’re here we should see the leaning tower of Pisa. Both of us had seen it before but it’s been a long time and when you’re a little kid you probably spend more time whining because you’re hungry, than actually enjoying the sights. However, this time I found the tower itself less spectacular than the first time. Maybe because it seemed smaller than the first time. On the day we were in Pisa, there weren’t many people. Only tourists were outside, riding the coaches, squandering their money for souvenirs, crowding around the tower.

I guess the most pictures taken in Pisa are the ones with a tourist trying to keep the tower from falling, from a forced perspective, making the tourist appear like a giant. Even if only one person had taken this picture ever, it would have been a boring, tacky, and not even slightly funny idea.

Maybe we were only annoyed by all the “typical” tourists. We were tourists but was it necessary to take 25 pictures of the same boring building from 25 different angles? I don’t even want to see those pictures when they’re developed. Imagine someone showing them to their friends: “This is the tower of Pisa - again, the tower of Pisa - tower of Pisa - er, same - tower - from the other side - with my wife on it - my wife and the kids - now they try to keep the tower from falling - that’s me - oh, I had my eyes closed…”. We didn’t have any pictures in the end but the greatest memories.

We went to one of the big squares, about five minutes from the tower. The place was dead. We sat down in the shade and relaxed. Then again, a coach passing by. Japanese tourists. One of them had a video camera. He didn’t see anything with his own eyes, he filmed everything. We were laughing at the home videos that were eight hours long and nobody wanted to see. And the comments (most people don’t seem to notice that audio is recorded as well): “This… is the… er… city hall - Connie, can you give me some water? - oh… battery is low…” with a low awkward voice, as if being forced to talk to themselves.

We went back. Nice trip. Hot sun. My mother had always said if there was a town she could live in it would be Siena. We had seen enough in the Florence area, the next day we took the train to Siena.