Entrance into the church grounds.

Detail of Baptistry

Leaning Tower of Pisa. Click here to go to the official website.

My sister had the foresight to do some research and found you have to order tickets well in advance if you want to go up the tower (it has been opened again). Only a few hundred people a day get to go through it.

The church.

It was intersting walking up the tower. Because it leans, sometimes you feel like you are walking more down than up. The marble steps have been tread on so many times over the centuries there are deep indents in the marble.

The baptistry. I noticed that many, if not all, of the churches had separate building for baptisms which I thought a bit odd. Turns out that you aren't/weren't allowed into the church if you weren't baptized, so there was a separate building just for that purpose.

View of the church and baptistry from the tower. The road to the left is lined with vendor boths which continue out the gate into the town.

Another view of the tower.

Wide-angle view of the church from the tower. The orange building to the right is the museum. Beyond that is the graveyard.

Church door. This looks a bit better than the 1999 picture.

A museum door.