Italy: Leaning toward Pisa

After Florence, we made a quick 1-day stop in Pisa. After all, if you're going to tour the country you kind of need to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, right?

The above image is the view from ON TOP of the Leaning Tower. Although the top of the Tower is surrounded by protective gates, so I had to stick my camera through a gap in the fence in order to get that shot. :)

These photos are cheesy, but we figured they were neccessary. :)

I don't know what the big deal is with this tower.. it looks straight up and down to me!

The Tower of Pisa is the belltower for the Cathedral here (seen in the header photo). It looks like it tilts a great deal, but amazingly it is only 5 degrees off. It was originally 5.5 degrees off and was slowly sinking further each year. It was closed in 1990 to begin work to stablize it. It took about 10 years and after some additional fixes in 2008, the Tower is supposedly fully stable and has stopped moving for the first time in its history. They could have straightened the tower entirely, but if they did the city of Pisa would essentially disappear without the tourism.

Inside the Cathedral...

And this photo is just to show how beautiful Theresa is...