Continuing with our road trip from Lausanne to Tuscany, in the segment after Cinque Terre, we left behind the Ligurian coast and headed inland towards Florence (Firenze). And guess what? The city of Pisa was just one hour away on our way, and we couldn’t resist the temptation to check out the famous leaning tower.
While planning our route on Google Maps, we came across unsettling stories of people having their car windows smashed and losing their luggage. Shockingly, these incidents even occurred when the vehicles were parked in paid supervised car parks during daylight hours. Rental cars were reportedly not exempt from these occurrences even though they were displaying local Italian number plates. Considering the fact that our car had a Swiss number plate, clearly distinct from the European Union state plates, we made it a project to seek out the most secure parking option near the Leaning Tower.
We chose this parking lot (Parcheggio Tower Parking at Via Andrea Pisano 17) initially because it seemed to provide individually-lockable covered garages, had reasonably good reviews, and was within walking distance from the tower.
We decided to spend just one hour at the Tower, as it was a scorching sunny day; so we opted not to use the special parking option. While en route to the Tower, we couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the street vendors who had little shelter from the sun.
The city of Pisa straddles the river Arno which flows westward from the Apennines, passing Florence and emptying into the Mediterranean near Pisa. While Pisa is renowned worldwide for this architectural anomaly, the city’s Etruscan origin and maritime history are often overlooked.
Like many tourists, we stopped here for only an hour to gawk at the tower.
The tower of Pisa (Torre di Pisa, founded 1172 and completed in 1372) is the campanile of Pisa Cathedral (Duomo), one of four Romanesque monuments in the Piazza dei Miracoli (Miracle Square, formerly the Piazza del Duomo) which includes the cathedral (founded 1064, restored 2018), Baptistery of San Giovanni (1152), and Camposanto (1277, ancient graves and museum). The site was included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
The tower has 8 floors and a height of about 56 meters (183 feet) and 295 steps. The tower began to lean due to a soft foundation just after three floors were built in the 12th century. Over the next 180 years, each appointed architect tried to compensate for the tilt, resulting in a bend in the middle portion of the tower.
In 1990, the tower was closed to the public and steel bands were wrapped around the base to prevent buckling; water and silt were then removed beneath its foundation. 900 tons of lead were placed at the base to counterbalance the force of the leaning stonework. The tower reopened in 2001, and the angle of the tilt is now stabilized at 3.97 degrees.
During a visit in the 1970’s, I (Chris) climbed those stairs to the third floor and stepped out gingerly onto the circular walkway which did not have any guard rail except the columns. I remember that it was raining and the marble surface was sloped and slippery.
Every one was having fun composing a photo of supporting the Leaning Tower… a few were pretending to push over the Tower.
Florence was only about an hour’s drive on A11 (Autostrada Firenze-Mare) but the city presented a different problem for us. We knew our hotel had valet parking at a secure location so storing the car for a few days was under control. Getting to the hotel which is centrally located in the historic district was a puzzle due to Florence’s traffic control system.
The historic center is periodically closed to traffic except for residents, taxis and buses. Great news for tourists on foot and cyclists, not so great for us. This area is known as the “zona a traffico limitato” or ZTL. which is further divided into A, B and O subzones with the A area being most restricted as it is in the very heart of the old city center. Our hotel, located just 100 meters from the cathedral (Duomo) is inside the A area.
Video surveillance cameras are installed at the entrances of the ZTL and they take photos of all cars and their license plates which are then checked against a “white” list to see if the licensed car can validly be admitted into the zone during a time period. Offenders will be fined even if (and especially) you do not reside locally.
We had in the past received speeding tickets from France by mail with an offer to pay the fine by credit card. So we assumed the same mechanism would be operational in Italy.
Luckily, somehow we found a circuitous way to the hotel which miraculously avoided using streets within the ZTL and after many turns, we managed to reach the hotel without getting into trouble. Valet parking took over from that point on. Whew !
On the right in the photo is the entrance to our hotel – Hotel Spadai – which will be the subject of our next post here.
If you like to join us on this epic road trip from the beginning in Switzerland, click here for the first post of the series.
