The moment I saw this … I really like this chap’s series, not least because he’s a genuine sort himself … there’s another, on Concrete, coming up maybe tomorrow … yes, the moment I saw this, I knew it was going to be a personal journey back to 1989, a significant year for the leaning tower as you’ll see.

Being overdramatic for just a moment … there was an incident on the second stage of the loggia where I believe I may well have fallen to my death … some sort of Guardian again?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa

The tower was leaning, for reasons which will become apparent both in the Wiki article and the video and let’s start referring now to its angle in degrees and minutes, plus its stone construction and its peculiar design … it was leaning at over 5 degrees in 1990, the year after my visit, they knew then they’d need to halt the lean before it toppled … so 1993 to 1996 saw it come back to well below 4 degrees.

My journey

I’d been in Firenze, or Florence, in a piazza with that Spanish girl I’d met and was taking in Rome and Pisa before heading north to Scandinavia … found myself on the train to Pisa and at one point, looking out of the windows, we were surrounded by seemingly endless fields of sunflowers … then the station in Pisa.

Don’t know why but I thought it would be just a small town, with the tower easily signposted … it wasn’t in the least, nor was there much around to indicate the way. Following the crowd did not work as there was no crowd … just everyone going about his or her business. Uh huh.

Found the tower eventually and again was stunned by how few people there were about. Yes, there were certainly tourists with their standard photo taking, pretending to hold the tower up from a distance and yes, it was 50 metres or so, so not small … but all the same, the whole thing across the grass seemed unprepossessing for want of a better word.

Never mind, headed for the small door at the base, where the mosaic surround was and I was in, climbing the narrow, slippery stone stairs.

The incident

There was a door which suddenly opened, bright light pouring through, there were maybe three others, total, with us, who decided to step out.

Gulp. The instant my feet were on the stones, I knew there was trouble. Stunned that we were actually allowed out there, not far from the downside’s most “down” point, I could not see below, back pressed against the wall of building stones but I knew that one quite likely slip of the feet on those slippery stones and there would be no way to stop sliding … the pillars were too far apart to help.

I was fairly certain that this was the second stage of the loggia and that’s borne out in the picture with that diminutive human framed in the doorway … could only think that one slip and I was gone … no guard rail nor raised foothold, quite the opposite … it was slightly convex and dropped away near the outer edge … I was sure death was a misstep away, so to speak, and had my hands flat against the wall behind.

Only thought was keep one’s head, slowly ease back through the door, just as the other two or three were doing.

Made it downstairs, thought never again, thanks … and in fact, that was true … never again, both with my own future doings, plus they apparently closed the tower to the public soon after … which made me think about Stonehenge … yes, I’ve been through it a few times, touching the stones, have kissed the Blarney Stone in Cork or wherever, saw Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin and obvious the Wall … and so on.

All my life I’ve been the last of this or that.