All the Obvious Jokes: Pisa
The thing about the Leaning Tower is that it's not as big as you'd think it would be. This disparity in perception was the same when seeing Michelangelo's David which is much bigger than one imagines it to be. The tower's angle is quite dramatic which regrettably makes it quite easy for any of one of the many tourists around it to take quite original snapshots of people either pushing the tower over or propping it up (I frequently found myself wiping tears from my eyes from all the laughter). You still have to admire the fact that it hadn't toppled over till the foundations were reinforced in the 20th century.
Pisa itself is quite small and I was surprised at how quickly I was able to get to to the tower from the train station in the south of the city. I wandered around and took in the other sights in the Piazza del Miracolo, the cathedral and baptistry. The interiors are quite beautiful, having been renovated during the Medici rule of Pisa. There is a warmth and soft fragrance in the cathedral which contrasts with the dank, cold of the gothic cathedrals of Northern Europe that I've been to. That made the otherwise humdrum experience of the visit just a little nicer. Overall though Pisa is no great shakes. How can they neglect to even name a single piazza after Galileo? Not that, not a monument, not his old house, not the location of any of the experiments - it's rather depressing.
So I got back on a train and headed back to Florence. The weather was conducive to sitting quietly on a train headed east. It had been raining on and off since the wee hours when we had so much hail that it actually woke me up in my hotel room. By the time I got to the train station and out towards my hotel it was raining so hard that I was soaked by the time I got back to the hotel. More's the reason to stay in tonight I think.
This has given me some time to ponder why I've been so impatient or aggravated during my time here, as well as the odd sense of deja vu. It's Spike Milligan's fault. Reading his war memoirs (WWII) - in which many events occur in Italy as the Allied Army made it's way into Italy and then up the peninsula even as Milligan stayed back, a victim of shell shock - gave me an early impression of the peninsula. But his visits to the Uffizi and Pitti, as well as the Amalfi coast, took place in the ebbing tide of a world war and you can bet there weren't lines upon lines at the time. I'm not sure I wouldn't trade experiences although truth to be told, seeing these places in the immediate shadow of a war may not be the best option. Anyway Spike, I hope you're satisfied.