Fiesole and Pisa

Fiesole

This beautiful little town, in the hills north of Florence, is actually older than Florence itself. It was settled by the Etruscans in 700 B.C.

One day Tina and I took the local bus and went there for a glorious day. This place could easily be the town in "Under the Tuscan Sun" by Frances Mayes. We both fell in love with it. It has this small village life-style and the history is apparent on every street corner. Also, the views of the Arno valley are incredible.

The Etruscan settlement of Fiesole was probably the center of a zone where settlements were scattered over the hillsides, which overlook the Florentine basin. Invaded by the Gauls and captured by the Romans and turned into a military colony. This was when Fiesole became a Roman city (Faesulae) with a forum, temples, theater and baths. The Theater, which is still well preserved, is sometimes used for spectacles of classic theater and has a capacity of about 3,000 people.

Today the Fiesole district has some 15,000 residents of whom approximately a third live in the ancient town, another third in the "Valle del Mugnone" zone and the remainder in the suburbs, housing clusters and isolated homes of the "Valle dell'Arno" area.

Our day here was great. We walked quite a bit, saw all the interesting sites, climbed to the church on top of the mountain, where we enjoyed the views. The weather was great, the food and wine delicious and the people were very nice too. There were only a handful of tourists in the town. Very quiet, very relaxing, very nice.

Pisa

We took the train from Florence to Pisa, to see the famous leaning tower. It was only a 45 minutes ride and not one moment too long. The landscape is beautiful, with rolling hills sprinkled with the typical Tuscan-style homes (see photo left)

When we arrived in Pisa, we walked from the station, through the town, to the principal landmarks. They are grouped in the area of the Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square) and include the cathedral, the baptistery, and the bell tower (campanile). The construction of these began in the 11th and 12th century. The bell tower is known as the "Leaning Tower of Pisa", and is a popular tourist attraction. Construction began in 1174 but was suspended when the builders became aware that the shallow foundation would be inadequate in the soft soil. The structure was nevertheless completed by the second half of the 14th century. It leans about 10° (about 16 feet) from the vertical. In 1990 the tower was closed to visitors because of concerns that it was structurally unstable.

Yes, the leaning tower is interesting, but the cathedral square is really the most beautiful landmark, especially the west side. All the tourists pass it quickly on their way from the leaning tower to the baptistery. But you must stop here and enjoy the west wall. It's a wall you can read. There are fragments of sculptured text scattered all over this and the other walls of the cathedral. They are a kind of medieval graffiti, something you find also on other buildings in Pisa. I don't know why it's there, but I assume that in most cases the medieval constructors wanted to recycle pieces from earlier buildings.

Straightening the tower

While we were there, engineers were just completing the years of work to get the tower straight again. They had been adding lead weights and cables, drilling holes under the foundation of the tower to remove some of the clay there, so that the tower could be pulled back vertically. After many measurements and gently pulling of the cables, the tower gracefully moved into its proper place, straight as a plumb-line.

I was there, with my camera, at the exact time.

The photos below show the before and after of this miracle. Remember you saw it here first.

On our walk back to the station -through the old town- we saw these interesting eye-catchers (see photos below).

How to finish our Florence vacation album?

We have crammed so much Renaissance art in this Florence vacation album, that we thought to end it a bit differently, with a photo of a modern painting. We saw it on our walk back from the Leaning Tower to the Pisa railroad station.

In this city with such a big tradition in Gothic and Renaissance art and murals, we were pleasantly surprised by a mural by Keith Haring, a famous contemporary artist. On the left you see a detail of the (almost unknown) mural he made for the city of Pisa.

Many people pass on their walk back to the railroad station, but they don't notice it. It's on a small square: Piazza S. Antonio.

Click on the angel to see all the figures in the whole mural.