Grand Tour of Italy: Pisa

Our first full day in Italy back in April was a visit to Turin.  The very next day, 4 April, we visited Lucca in the morning and Pisa in the afternoon.  That gives you a feeling for how quickly we went from one place to the other.

Lucca and Pisa, for reference, are in Tuscany, west of Florence.
The day after Lucca and Pisa, we went to Florence...and the next day to San Gimignano and Siena.
It's always good to have a reference point, don't you think?!

Basically, this is Pisa!  As you enter the Piazza dei Miracoli,
you first see the Baptistery, the cathedral and then the leaning tower...in that order.

And while we were there (can you tell?) we had the most torrential rain of the entire trip!

Lucky for us, we were let loose to explore on our own without a guide.

Guess where Astrid and I headed first, to beat the rain?

Everyone knows this place for the Leaning Tower of Pisa, of course.

Depending on what side you stand, the more you see the lean.

"In 1990 the tower leaned at an angle of 5.5 degrees, but following remedial work

between 1993 and 2001 this was reduced to 3.97 degrees, reducing the overhang by 45 cm

at a cost of £200m.  It lost a further 4 cm of tilt in the two decades to 2018."

Surely you know that in such places everyone tries the obligatory "gesture."
I was bound and determined to get a good photo of Astrid doing The Push.
Do you know how hard it is to get it right??

I finally settled on this.  HA!

It wasn't raining yet, so we walked around the cathedral square/piazza...

which really wasn't far.  See how close everything is!

Even Romulus and Remus are...right there.

At that point, the heavens let loose and it was all we could do to make it to the front of the cathedral,

without being completely soaked to the bone (as happened to others in our group).

The cathedral entrance is behind me where I stood in shelter to take this image of the Baptistery.

It's Italy's largest baptistery, completed in 1363.

We had hoped to visit it but had only one hour for the Pisa visit.  Seriously.

And since we were standing there at the Pisa Cathedral, the decision was made for us!

(The top image is the entrance and I'm standing at the Baptistery looking back.)

Of course, you know me and cathedrals!  It was the right decision.

It's dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, with groundbreaking in 1063.
[The leaning tower/campanile is the cathedral's free-standing bell tower.]

We were inside for only 20 minutes, so I grabbed what I could.

Something important happens in the Roman Catholic church in 2020, but I can't remember what?

I always grab the pulpit, of course, because of Preacher Dad.
But where was the organ??? Surely it was there??

I assume this was the lectern, used sometimes instead of the pulpit?

Then to the back of the church, which is opposite the altar and also the entrance from outside.

This was my second visit to Pisa and both times I missed the 4th part of the piazza:
the Campo Santo or Camposanto Monumentale, which is the cemetery.

But I did take a photo in 2007 of the tabernacle over the original doorway entrance.
The Virgin Mary with child is surrounded by four saints,
a work in the 14th century by a follower of Giovanni Pisano.

And yes, in 1987 the entire piazza was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.