This story was included in 30 Days in Italy (Travelers’ Tales, 2006) and won an honorable mention in the 2006 Solas Awards Best Travel Writing competition.

Paris has la Tour Eiffel
Babylon had its tower as well
But neither has the power to seize ya
Like the Leaning Tower of Pisa

This was my father’s rhyme. When I was young, he bounced me on his knee, reciting the words in a hushed and tuneless monotone. Every time he got to seize ya, he grabbed my shoulders and squeezed, and I shrieked in a confusion of fear and delight.

My father taught high school physics and astronomy, and my bedtime stories often featured such heros as Copernicus, Borelli and daVinci. And Galileo. How bold Galileo seemed, overturning Aristotle and challenging the Inquisition! How brilliant his mind, to invent the telescope, discover the moons of Jupiter, and develop elegant theories of periodic motion. How many times I imagined him standing at the top of that famous bell tower in Pisa, holding a cannon ball in one hand and a wooden ball in the other, poised to demonstrate the laws of gravitational acceleration.

Few other cities inspire the imagination as Pisa does. Beauty, history, science, romance, religion: There’s the Santa Maria della Spina, a gorgeous, three-spired gothic church ‘ somewhat hat-like in appearance ‘ that houses a single thorn from Christ’s crown. The Campo Santo, a graveyard containing dirt the Crusaders brought back from the Holy Land, is filled with crumbling Roman sarcophagi ‘ some of which have been used more than once. At the Arsenale, you’ll be transported back to Pisa’s glory days as a wealthy seaport when you view the remains of more than 15 ships and other artifacts, well-preserved in ancient silt. Elsewhere in Pisa you might wander intimate, arcaded streets, view 3,000-year-old Etruscan ruins, or absorb details of the art and architecture that inspired the Italian Renaissance.

And see the Leaning Tower! Presiding over the Field of Miracles (an orderly, manicured lawn), the tilting tower is a comical contrast. It is not simply a straight-but-slanted cylinder. The tower was built over the course of two hundred years, and the fact that it leaned was evident early-on. Builders attempted to rectify the situation by constructing the tower itself on a compensatory slant, and the result is a subtle but definite banana-shaped curve.

As a child, I imagined strolling across the Field of Miracles on a sunny day. I didn’t know why it was called the Field of Miracles, but supposed the Virgin had probably appeared to someone there. That, or an innocent baby had been cured of a horrible disease. Perhaps both, since it was called the Field of Miracles ‘- plural. The sky radiated bright blue (it never rained in my imagination), the grass rolled out a perfect, verdant carpet (despite the lack of rain), and the bright marble of the majestic cathedral nearly blinded me. The Leaning Tower’s cool interior was a welcome relief.

Escaping the heat of the day, I entered a world of fantastic animals, with monsters and sea battles and hog-bears circling around me, no less frightening because they were captured in stone. Eight hundred years ago, children just like me had entered the tower and shuddered at the animali mostruosi ‘ monstrous animals ‘ then hurried up the steps to the comfort of plain limestone block walls, punctuated only by the sunlight streaming in at each window. We climbed the tower many times, those children and I, all 294 steps.

And now, 23 years later, I was finally visiting in person! After I’d rounded the column three times, I felt pleasantly off-kilter. By the fifth, the combination of close quarters, physical exertion, a dizzying tilt, and pushing tourists conspired to make me reconsider my plan to reach the top. Not only were the stairs themselves slanted, they were also deeply worn ‘ from the footsteps of millions of visitors during the past eight centuries ‘ and maintaining my balance became increasingly difficult. The alternating darkness and bright sunlight made my head ache, and I thought the view from the top of the tower was probably not as exhilarating as I had previously imagined. But the crowd behind me was insistent; it became a sinuous sea serpent, pushing me upward and devouring all hope of escape.

At the top, fresh air and an expansive view rejuvenated me. The Baptistery looked like a giant wedding cake, creamy white and layered and somehow voluptuous, with its egg-like dome. The vast piazza was hemmed with an exuberant string of souvenir stalls, and beyond that stretched ochre-tiled rooftops, narrow streets, medieval palaces, and the winding Arno River.

Ah, the Arno. Wide and lazy, it is a placid reflectory for the grand palazzos lining its banks. Who had lived in these palaces, and what advantages did wealth confer during the Middle Ages, when they were built? Perhaps the owners were wool or silk merchants, presiding over open-air markets here at the end of the exotic Silk Road stretching all the way to China. Surely they strolled across the Ponte di Mezzo, enjoying the afternoon breeze and picnicking on salty olives and pungent pecorino. Doubtless they participated each June in early versions of Gioco del Ponte ‘ the Game of the Bridge ‘ a lusty contest in which twelve rival local teams challenge each other for control of the bridge. These days, it’s a colorful pageant involving shining armor and fluttering flags, hundreds of ornate medieval costumes, and one seven-ton cart, which is pushed in a kind of reverse tug-of-war to establish symbolic control of the city.

I could have enjoyed my medieval reverie indefinitely, but our guide indicated it was time to go, so I took one last look from the Leaning Tower. Tourists in the piazza below assumed the I’m-holding-up-the-tower pose — arms outstretched, one leg bent — for their companions with cameras. Click. But I couldn’t help smiling along with them. Click. OK, now you hold it up and I’ll take the photo, then we’ve got to catch the bus. Click. A crowd was gathering for the next tour. Souvenir vendors hawked their wares: miniature towers, books and postcards, tea towels and salt-and-pepper sets, keychains, plastic skulls and lizards (reminders of the Campo Santo).

Was this what Pisa had become? Tourists herded from one attraction to another, planning their day around the bus schedule, purchasing silly plastic mementos destined to gather dust on far-away bookshelves? I looked more closely.
A seventy-something couple, well-dressed and holding hands, emerged from the Duomo, which is one of the most impressive Romanesque churches in the world. They admired its intricate, multicolored stonework: mosaic stars, complex geometric patterns, long, horizontal bands of gray-green marble. Unhurried, they ambled towards the Baptistery, stopping to watch a flock of pigeons pecking at the grass.

Nearby, a young mother sat on a bench. Her face was flushed, and I thought her feet must be tired, because a pair of black, high-heeled sandals sat on the bench beside her. On the woman’s lap was a small child, barely old enough to sit by itself, but already with a headful of the kind of fine blond hair that looks like cornsilk, and sparkles in the sunshine. Slowly, the woman began to bounce her knees, and her child smiled in delight. I couldn’t hear the woman’s words, but I knew the rhyme by heart:

Paris has la Tour Eiffel
Babylon had its tower as well
But neither has the power to SEIZE YA
Like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.