We arrived in Pisa, Italy late on a Thursday evening. Our Hostel (a kind of cheap, backpacker’s dorm) was quite literally across the street from the Tower. Our room faced the opposite way, but you could see the Tower from our parking spot!

The Tower complex, inside a large medieval wall, consists of the Tower, a Church, A Baptistery, and some other buildings. The site is open all night and so at nearly midnight, we walked across the street, down a few hundred yards to the archway entry, and into the site. Between the whiteness of the Tower and the floodlights, pictures were great! There were a lot of tourists there, even at midnight, and well-armed soldiers patrolled the area. We took some pics, walked around a bit, and then returned to the Hostel via a side road.

Pisa has a 20,000+ college student population and all the area Squares (courtyards/intersections) were packed with pubs, clubs, and people out on the streets drinking and socializing. The Hostel was really nice (all IKEA stuff ) and at $18/per person, was a great place to crash on a bunk bed and have a hot shower the next morning. Friday morning, we walked around the Tower site a bit more, already packed at 8 am, and then drove off towards the Mediterranean coast to go south to Rome.

Some postcards and history about why the Tower of Pisa leans. You can actually see the curvature of the Tower, as they tried to straighten it in later layers by making one side a little taller. So each layer isn’t quite a perfect disc.