LIVORNO, ITALY (4/14/2007)

From: Sherman Rootberg (BiggiRoot)
Date: Apr 14, 2007 5:20 PM
Subject: Saturday, April 14, 2007

Saturday, April 14, 2007

LIVORNO, ITALY

Livorno means leghorn. Aren’t you glad this is such an educational blog? No, I do not know why someone named it that or whom. I know someone will ask.

This is also the second largest port in Italy. This town has no other significance as all of the ancient buildings and monuments and almost the entire city were destroyed from bombing in WW II. Guess who did that? I betcha, next time they will pick the right side.

This is the sea port for Pisa and Florence. We had never been to either but Florence was a ten hour trip and I always wanted to see the leaning tower of Pisa. It always sounded like seeing one of those things that was like the pyramids. So off we went to see Pisa.

Shortly after we docked this morning, we went out and got on the bus. The weather forecasts here are Just as accurate as the ones at home. The high was supposed to be about 60 and it was supposed to be cloudy and rain. So, of course, it was bright, sunny and it got pretty warm.

The ride to Pisa was only about half an hour. What we did not expect was the 2000 other buses. The tour description did not say anything about a three mile walk from the bus to the tower either.

Outside the entrance to the church yard there were snack shops and many small stands selling the usual tourist junk. The only vendors were a bunch of very southern Italians, blacks, and a few oriental looking woman. The blacks were trying to sell cheap knock off watches and they could be pesty but not nearly as bad as some other places. The vendors at the stands were very laid back. If you didn’t want something you asked about, they didn’t push at all. They didn’t expect to haggle about prices either.

Once through a set of arches, you were back in time except for the hoards of people. This was like a whole medieval city. There were all kinds of old buildings restaurants and the usual tourist stands. The leaning tower is really just a bell tower for the church. The church itself is huge as are several other buildings on a very green lawn area of several blocks. Mostly the people are walking on walkways. Very few are on the beautiful lawn but there are some and at one end there are some young people sitting in the sun and others doing to each other what young people are known to do to each other.

This place is really gorgeous. None of the pictures I have ever seen do it any justice. The buildings and the tower are made of beautiful local white marble. When you get next to the tower, it is far larger then imagined. Yes, I pushed as hard as I could but I could not straighten it out. We are told that several others have tried.

The original architects screwed up big time. They not only built on soft land that was once a river bed, there was still water beneath. It started to lean when only four of the eight stories had been built. It was left that way for a century. Then another architect thought he could solve the problem by building the last four stories way out of balance. If you look from the right directions, you can see the tower is actually shaped like a banana, with the back of the arch facing opposite the side it leans toward. It did however, continue to lean more and more until it started to look like it might topple. A few years ago they completed a processes with weights and cables that brought it back to the angle it was on either two or four centuries ago. One guide said two while the other said four.

The tower is far more impressive in person than you expect. It is really a beautiful piece of work. You could call it art. There are some huge bronze bells at the top but they do not dare ever ring them in fear they would worsen the structural problems.

We spent quite a bit of time walking all around these beautiful buildings. One thing you never hear is that the huge church is also sinking. If you go around the back of the building you can see that it is bent lower in an area toward the right side with the right end higher. You can see the large stone blocks at the base of the building are sunk further into the ground at that same area.

I was impressed to see that no one was tossing debris. The entire place was very clean and young and old alike were going out of their way to put their refuse in the provided containers. How pleasantly different from the Arab lands. Even with these huge crowds of people, we never heard anyone hollering or being belligerent as was common in some less friendly places.

We did find something unexpected. Near the entrance to the old city was a Jewish cemetery. The opposite side of the cemetery was on the green lawn area with the church buildings. We were told that a Jewish cemetery could not be on consecrated ground but was just off of it. The side facing the church was heavily gated with tall wood slats. In front of that was a tall wire fence. This made it hard to see in and even harder to get a picture but we did get a couple with Stars of David on tombstones. We walked all the way around to the other end of the cemetery and found it even more heavily gated. On this side there was a brass plaque saying what this was and there was a sheet of printed paper saying when the cemetery was opened. As we could see fresh flowers, this must be an operating cemetery. We could find no one who had any information about this cemetery. We are going to see if we can find anything on the internet.

Both of us found we had walked so far we were having trouble walking any further. We decided to just wait in an area we were to meet the others before walking back to the bus. The big problem with that decision was the many vendors also occupying the area. Of course we ended up with another purse. That ugly thing she wears around her waist had a zipper that gave up. That and a gelato cone was all she bought. I considered myself to have gotten off easy. When everyone else showed up we found a shuttle to get back to the bus.

This had been another great day. Italy was a good country.