13 September, Sunday.
We checked out in the morning and grabbed a few tiny pastries and cappucinnos from a little café on the way to the train station. Our barista told us that Firenze was much better than Pisa, and that he was sorry we were studying not here but in Rome. From there, we bought tickets to Pisa and took the first train out of Firenze. The ride was just under an hour, so we were in Pisa by midday. The town from end to end is about as large as the walk from Medag to the Vatican, the buildings are colorful like Florence but with a different feel, an almost sleepier quality. We haggled down a couple of pashmina scarves in the market to four euro each and then headed to Piazza del Duomo, across the river and its colorful, picturesque houses.
The tower was immediately obvious, thrusting crookedly into the sky against a backdrop of light clouds, with the beautiful Duomo church and its medieval brick courtyard to one side. The area around it was crawling with tourists, all taking the same picture of themselves holding up or pushing over the tower. Naturally, we did the same. The tower itself was smaller than I expected, but much more impressive than pictures can show. From a steeply slanted base, it rises jaggedly, not an even straight line, and with its girth and varicolored columns, many of which have been replaced over the years with newer marble, and arches, it looks likely to topple at any second. That is stands is a marvel that kept us staring at it for many minutes, until we finally ventured in through the free prayer entrance of the Duomo.
I wanted to look around the church, so I paid the two euro for the entrance fee. Prettier inside than Firenze’s Duomo, its walls are covered by a series of huge oil paintings with stark dark-light contrast and glowing colors reminiscent of Michelangelo. A vast portrait of Jesus surrounded by angels and other religious figures vaults over the altar, and a wing on one side houses the blackened remains of Saint Ugliana, a local holy woman. The paintings alone deserve a look, as well as the delicate moldings, especially on the twisting columns and décor of the baptismal font. The outer yard is hemmed in by a brown brick fence, lending it the semblance of a medieval castle, beyond which lies an old cemetery sadly closed to free entrance.
After that, we grabbed a lunch and a train back to Firenze, arriving just a few minutes before a train to Rome. It was in our train compartment that we realized we had not validated our ticket, a crime which usually carries a fifty euro fine. Thankfully, the conductor took pity on our foolish American-ness and lowered the fine to just five euro. With heavy eyelids, I watched the Tuscan countryside, speckled with fine stucco houses and fields of sunflowers, slide past until finally falling asleep. That night, we returned late after a long train ride, and everyone wondered where we had been, since we didn’t tell them of Pisa until then. We spent the night quietly doing homework, exhausted from three days of nonstop walking through an Italian paradise worthy of its finest citizen, Dante.
