The Piazza del Duomo of Pisa contains the Duomo, Baptistry and the Bell tower (Leaning tower of Pisa), although as you can imagine, it’s the tower which draws the tourists rather than the Duomo of Baptistry. The whole square is a UNESCO world heritage site, with construction on the oldest building, the Duomo, starting in 1064. Construction on the bell tower itself started in 1173, and was halted for a century due to lean caused by the poor foundation and soil. It took nearly 200 years for the bell tower to be completed, and was gradually stabilised during the 1990’s to prevent the tower from collapsing.
The square itself is rather nice to wander around. It’s a shame we didn’t have either a longer or shorter time within Pisa. I found that it was just slightly too long if you were only wandering around the outside the buildings, and just a bit too short to actually be able to go and check out the inside of the buildings.
Some things I learnt during our short time in Pisa:
- Don’t take anything of value with you when wandering around Pisa. We were warned of the pickpockets in the area
Summary
- What we did: Approximately 1.5 hours within the Piazza del Duomo of Pisa before jumping back on the bus
- Favourite part: Wandering around the buildings
- Best Experience: Being a typical tourist and attempting to ‘hold up’ the tower
- Worst Experience: None particularly, just have to be cautious of pickpockets
- Must See Attraction: The tower of course
- Next stop: Onto Lake Maggiore and Switzerland!
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- Details on the buildings in Pisa
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- Piazza Del Duomo
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- Duomo, Pisa
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- Leaning Tower of Pisa
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- Tourists gathering for the climb
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- The Tower