Pisa, Italy: Day 6, Part 1

Being our very first stop in Italy, of course we were excited, seeing as more than half of us had never been and Italy is just about the most well-known, beautiful country in the world.  We didn't spend the whole day in Pisa, just a few hours, leaving in the mid-morning to go to Florence.  Our tour guide for the day was named Francesco, my personal favorite of the trip.  Omi and Opa had been to Florence before and decided to have a more relaxing day, exploring Livorno(our port city), and spending time on the ship.
        Pisa pretty much consists of 3 things: some beautiful, Italian-typical buildings, an extremely old wall around the main city, and of course the famous Leaning Tower.  This was obviously the sole purpose of our visit and on the way to the tower our guide filled us in on it's history.
        The first three floors were created at the same time, but when the creators realized it was leaning they stopped building it for centuries and it was left unfinished.  Finally, someone came along and completed building the unique structure, but it leaned more each and every year.  Then in the late 20th century a group of scientists got together and figured out a way to make an enormously heavy marble building stop leaning in the soft, sandy soil it was built on.  They injected their special substance into the soil to freeze the tower in its current place.  And here we are today.
        So we visited.  We played the mega-tourists and took pictures holding up the Tower, as well as doing some souvenir shopping.  It was incredibly striking to look at a building that was so beautiful, so intricate and so obviously heavy, leaning noticeably to its side, yet still safe to stand in.  The buildings next to the tower are also very interesting.  One has an enormous door covered in carvings and the other is a dome that is red on one side and faded to white on the other.  One of the things that I liked the most about Pisa was the fact that surrounding these famous buildings is and area of extremely green and beautiful grass that makes the whole thing less touristy to me in some way.  I adored that grass almost more than the main attraction. All in all I never expected much out of this city OR the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but both surprised me by being above and beyond my original expectations.