Tuscany Trip: Pisa
Pisa is just over an hour drive from where we stayed outside of Florence and great for a half-day visit. The Square of Miracles with the famous leaning tower, is truly beautiful. Outside the square there are all the touristy vendor stalls, but once you step inside the walls the green grass is immaculate and the white marble baptistry, cathedral, Campo Santo and the tower just gleam.
The night before we visited Pisa, we all laughed together as we looked up pictures of people taking the standard “hold-up-the-tower” photos and I asked the kids what they wanted to do for their own pictures. Once we got to the square and saw all the people taking those kind of photos, the kids said no thanks. We loved taking pictures of the people taking pictures instead!
I don’t know what year this was taken, but you are not allowed on most of the grass anymore. All the walkways are lined with people that look just like this, posing for pictures of themselves holding up the tower 😂
I think we loved visiting Campo Santo on the square the most. It means holy field and is where the bishops and important people associated with the square are memorialized and buried. Centuries ago when the square was being constructed, they brought some dirt from the Holy Land and mixed it in with the soil so that it would be holy. The interior walls are covered in religious-themed frescos that are truly astounding. The style of the art was very ahead of its time in those days, showing beautiful forms and emotion in all of the people. The kids especially loved examining the depictions of heaven and hell that were so inspired by Dante. Hell is portrayed as absolutely awful with people being eaten and dismembered, sliced open, headless, tormented. And heaven, looks relatively boring in contrast.
I loved this statue of this woman. So beautiful!
Those in heaven…
…and those in hell. The kids were completely fascinated by these depictions and it sparked a lot of really good conversations about what we believe.
Across the square there is a museum where the original artist planning sketches for all of the frescos in Campo Santo were discovered and are now on display. Emme, our family artist, was especially enthralled seeing the details and the plans that went into the art. It is always hard to comprehend just how many centuries old everything is and see the works of so many artists and craftsmen.
The tower is beautiful and very much leaning! And the cathedral was beautiful too!
We ran into more friends in Pisa! Such a su
Inside the baptistry. Large font.
Inside the cathedral.
We wandered the rest of Pisa, found an amazing panini shop, got scammed*, checked out a grocery store on the outside of town and got some life-changing Aceto Balsamico from Modena and olive oil, and then went back home for the day.
Santa Maria della Spina. It used to house a relic of a spine from the crown of thorns that was placed on Jesus’ head. Now it is a small art and sculpture gallery.
*It’s always smart to be careful about pickpockets when you’re in tourist areas in Europe and I was familiar with the types of scams that we needed to avoid — like don’t touch anything or they will assume you are buying it, or don’t point to a street artist print that you think is beautiful because they will literally start rolling it up for you saying that you are now buying it. While I was ordering panini’s for us for lunch a street salesman walked up to the kids and Matt who were finding a table for us to sit at on the street and he gave the kids cheap bracelets, putting them on their wrists, before Matt even knew what was happening. When he tried to give them back the man refused, so our kids thought is was just a nice gift. Nope. The man wouldn’t leave us alone until I paid him. It was lame. And we all wish we would have noticed him coming. The kids are super aware now not to accept anything!
