Consejos de un viaje

Benvenuti in Italia!

1. Torre pendente di Pisa

The famous Tower of Pisa was a work of art, performed in three stages over a period of about 177 years. Although intended to stand vertically, the tower began leaning to the southeast soon after the onset of construction in 1173 due to a poorly laid foundation and loose substrate that has allowed the foundation to shift direction, but now it is one of  the main attractions in Italy and one of the things associated with Italy......

Interesting facts about the place

• The height of the tower is 55.86 m from the ground on the lowest side and 56.70 m on the highest side. The width of the walls at the base is 4.09 m and at the top 2.48 m. Its weight is estimated at 14,500 tonnes. The tower has 296 steps (the seventh floor has a different number of steps on the two sides, if you climb it on the north part you can count only 294 steps). The tower leans at an angle of 3.97 degrees, so this means that the top of the tower is 3.9 meters from where it would stand if the tower was vertical
  
• The first floor is of the white marbleas the construction campanile began on August 9, 1173, a period of military success and prosperity. Other layers are of average stones.... (I´ve seen it)
• The tower began to sink after construction progressed to the third floor in 1178. This was due to a mere three-meter foundation, set in weak, unstable subsoil. This means the design was flawed from the beginning
• There has been controversy about the real identity of the architect of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. For many years, the design was attributed to Guglielmo and Bonanno Pisano, a well-known 12th-Century resident artist of Pisa, famous for his bronze casting, particularly in the Pisa Duomo. Bonanno Pisano left Pisa in 1185 for Monreale, Sicily, only to come back and die in his home town. His sarcophagus was discovered at the foot of the tower in 1820. However recent studies seems to indicate Diotisalvi as the original architect, by construction affinities with his other works, like the Baptistery in Pisa.
• Galileo Galilei is said to have dropped two cannon balls of different masses from the tower to demonstrate that their descending speed was independent of their mass. This is considered an apocryphal tale, and the only source for it comes from Galileo's secretary.
• In 1934 Benito Mussolini ordered that the tower be returned to a vertical position, so concrete was poured into its foundation. However, the result was that the tower actually sank further into the soil.
• The government of Italy has organised some construction works there in order to prevent the tower from collapsing
• In 1987, the tower was declared as part of the Piazza dei Miracoli UNESCO World Heritage Site along with neighbouring cathedral, baptistery and cemetery.

As nobody would probably pay attention to these facts when you actually visit the place (because everybody is too busy watching everything that happens around), it is possible to read these things, either here or from other sources  :)
Anyway I hope you enjoy the story and my photo gallery