The Tower, It Leans

Piazza del Duomo di Pisa




Lots of people on the piazza getting the standard touristic picture.




With the baptistery in the forefront - in the middle ages you couldn't enter the church without being baptized so baptisteries were built in front of, and separate from the church.


Baptistery - The baptistery has amazing acoustics and sometimes one of the employees will show up their skills and the building by singing.  You can sing a three part harmony ... solo.  We were there while he did. You can see/hear it here.

Baptistery interior




The whole area is really touristic.  You have about a ten minute walk from the parking area to the piazza and the route is lined with street hawkers, pickpockets, etc.  They are not allowed in the piazza.


The legend is that if you look at this column your significant other will remain faithful.  The guide joked that the spell only holds for 24 hours, so it is a good thing she is there every day.


Nave


The interior has an Islamic feel.


The pulpit was designed by Giovanni Pisano around 1300.  While this was done more than a century before the Renaissance Michelangelo traveled here to draw inspiration from it.






ceiling


This lady can't walk, is in a wheelchair, and firing up her cigarette.  I thought it was quite the commentary.

The excursion I was signed up for including both Pisa and Lucca and was a disaster.  Because of the time management problem we actually left people in Pisa who didn't make it back to the meeting spot on time, and the guide made some fairly awful racist comments about some of the street vendors - telling us not to be afraid of the "black Africans" they wouldn't hurt us, and actually were helpful in letting the guides know when pickpockets were around.  The whole thing just left a bad taste.  BUT, here is what you should take away from my experience.  Pisa is more than just a leaning tower.  It is a beautiful and amazing place.  Please visit, and please resist the temptation to take the standard touristic picture of you pushing the tower into place.

Bits of Barcelona - Park Guell

Where?


I can't hear you...



!!

I had read on a travel site that the best way to get to Park Guell was to take the metro one stop beyond the "Park Guell" stop (Lesseps on the Green -L3-line) to Vallcarca and take the "electric stairs" up to the secondary park entrance.  This way it was all downhill through the park. Even now I would still recommend this route, but be forewarned...there is a section which feels totally vertical that you have to climb between the escalators.



There was a lot of "Free Park Guell" graffiti around, and I assume it is because they are beginning to charge an entrance fee to the monument section of the park.



Also there was this spay-painted on the wall.




There were a ton of vendors scattered around the park, but there was one selling fans right at the top of the mountain. (Did I mention that Barcelona was a lot hotter than Eastern Europe, and so very humid!)
For one euro?  Yes, please.



Hey look, off in the distance it is Gaudi's most famous undertaking... La Sagrada Familia


Gaudi created viaducts around the park wide enough to carriages to pass through.












Square of Nature and Hipostila room:
There are 86 columns supporting the square and the roof to is covered in "brittle" (mosaic).  There are 14 brittle spread unevenly throughout the space.






















The columns are not only support for the square above, but also serve as drains - hollow, they funnel and filter the water that collects in the square into a reservoir under the room.

Above the porch is a sandy space enclosed in Gaudinian style - it is shaped like a snake and covered in brittle.














Above the main entrance to the park (remember I was walking down!) is a grand staircase that leads to the Hipostila room which is divided by a number of water sources.  This is where the famous lizard is located.





Lizard, not a dragon.












Main Entrance (or exit for those who do the uphill at the beginning)




























To be completely honest I recommend the Vallcarca stop over Lesseps because neither are particularly close to either park entrance, but from Park Guell I walked back down to Lesseps (about 15 minutes), and I say down because it also had a pretty steep incline, but no electric stairs.