You’ve seen it in TV ads, in movies, and on posters, key chains, and souvenir dishes—now it’s time to see it in the flesh. And, the funny thing is, it’s one iconic image that really looks like its famous reproductions.
The off-kilter Tower parallels Pisa’s history. It was started in the late 12th century, when Pisa was at its peak: one of the world’s richest, most powerful, and most sophisticated cities. Pisans had built their huge cathedral to reflect their city’s superpower status, and the cathedral’s bell tower—the Leaning Tower—was the perfect complement. But as Pisa’s power declined, the Tower reclined, and ever since, both have required a great deal of effort to prop. However, after a 10-year renovation, the Tower’s been stabilized. You can admire it in all its cockeyed glory and even climb up for a commanding view.
(See “Pisa” map, here.)
Cost: Free to look, €18 to go inside and climb to the seventh-floor viewing platform, one level below the top—the belfry is not currently accessible (see age restrictions in “Reservations to Climb the Tower,” below).
Hours: Always viewable from the outside. It’s open to climb daily April-Sept 8:00-20:00 (until 22:00 mid-June-Aug), Oct 9:00-19:00, Nov-Feb 10:00-17:00, March 9:00-18:00, ticket office opens 30 minutes early, last entry 30 minutes before closing.
Reservations to Climb the Tower: Entry to the tower is by a timed ticket good for a 30-minute visit. Every 20 minutes, 45 people can clamber up the tilting steps (about 280 total—while belfry is closed). Children under age eight are not allowed to go up. Children ages 8-12 must be accompanied by—and hold hands at all times with—an adult. Teenagers (up to and including 18-year-olds) must also be accompanied by an adult.
Reserve your timed entry in person at either ticket office (see below), or choose your entry time and buy your ticket online at www.opapisa.it.
Online bookings are accepted no earlier than 20 days and no later than 12 days in advance. You must pick up your ticket(s) at least 30 minutes before your entry time. Show up 10 minutes before your appointment at the meeting point outside the ticket office.
To reserve in person, go to the ticket office, behind the Tower on the left (in the yellow building), or to the Museum of the Sinopias ticket office, hidden behind the souvenir stalls. In summer, for same-day entry, you’ll likely need to wait a couple of hours before going up (see the rest of the monuments and grab lunch while waiting). The wait is usually much shorter at the beginning or end of the day.
Getting There: From Pisa Centrale train station, you can walk (30 minutes), take a taxi (€7-10), or catch bus LAM Rossa (4-6/hour, runs until 20:30, 15 minutes); see here for details.
Remember, if your train stops at the smaller Pisa San Rossore Station, get off there and you’re only about four blocks from the Tower (head for the Baptistery’s dome following Via Andrea Pisano).
If you’re traveling by car, see “Arrival in Pisa: By Car,” on here.
At the Tower: In 2013, the room at the bottom of the tower, known as the Sala del Pesce for the Christian fish symbol on the wall, was opened to visitors after a long period of restoration. Here, guides offer a short explanation of the Tower’s construction and history before you wind your way up the outside along a spiraling ramp, climbing 280 or so stairs. For your 30-minute time slot, figure about a 5-minute presentation by the guide, 10 minutes to climb, and 10 to descend. This leaves about 5 minutes for vertigo on the seventh-floor viewing platform. (The belfry at the top of the tower is currently not accessible.) Even though this is technically a “guided” visit, the “guide” is a museum guard who makes sure you don’t stay past your scheduled time.
Baggage Check: You can’t take any bags up the Tower, but day-bag-size lockers are available at the ticket office—show your Tower ticket to check your bag. You may check your bag 10 minutes before your reservation time and must pick it up immediately after your Tower visit.
Caution: The railings are skinny, the steps are slanted, and rain makes the marble slippery. Anyone with balance issues of any sort should think twice before ascending.
Starring: The Tower’s frilly Pisan Romanesque look and its famous lean.
(See “Leaning Tower” map, here.)
Rising up alongside the cathedral, the Tower is nearly 200 feet tall and 55 feet wide, weighing 14,000 tons and currently leaning at a five-degree angle (15 feet off the vertical axis). It started to lean almost immediately after construction began (it would take two centuries to finish the structure). Count the eight stories—a simple base, six stories of columns (forming arcades), and a belfry on top. The inner structural core is a hollow cylinder built of limestone bricks, faced with white marble brought here by barge from San Giuliano, northeast of the city. The thin columns of the open-air arcades make the heavy Tower seem light and graceful.
The Tower was built over two centuries by at least three different architects. You can see how each successive architect tried to correct the leaning problem—once halfway up (after the fourth story), once at the belfry on the top.
The first stones were laid in 1173, probably under the direction of the architect Bonanno Pisano (who also designed the Duomo’s bronze back door). Five years later, just as the base and the first arcade were finished, someone said, “Is it just me, or does that look crooked?” The heavy Tower—resting on a very shallow 13-foot foundation—was obviously sinking on the south side into the marshy, multilayered, unstable soil. (Actually, all the Campo’s buildings tilt somewhat.) The builders carried on anyway, until they’d finished four stories (the base, plus three arcade floors). Then, construction suddenly halted—no one knows why—and for a century the Tower sat half-finished and visibly leaning.
Around 1272, the next architect continued, trying to correct the problem by angling the next three stories backward, in the opposite direction of the lean. The project then again sat mysteriously idle for nearly another century. Finally, Tommaso Pisano put the belfry on the top (c. 1350-1372), also kinking it backward.
After the Tower’s completion, several attempts were made to stop its slow-motion fall. The architect/artist/writer Giorgio Vasari reinforced the base in 1550, and it actually worked. But in 1838, well-intentioned engineers pumped out groundwater, destabilizing the Tower and causing it to increase its lean at a rate of a millimeter per year.
It got so bad that in 1990 the Tower was closed for repairs, and $30 million was spent trying to stabilize it. Engineers dried the soil with steam pipes, anchored the Tower to the ground with steel cables, and buried 600 tons of lead on the north side as a counterweight (not visible)—all with little success. The breakthrough came when they drilled 15-foot-long holes in the ground on the north side and sucked out 60 tons of soil, allowing the Tower to sink on the north side and straighten out its lean by about six inches.
As well as gravity, erosion threatens the Tower. Since its construction, 135 of the Tower’s 180 marble columns have had to be replaced. Stone decay, deposits of lime and calcium phosphate, accumulations of dirt and moss, cracking from the stress of the lean—all of these are factors in its decline.
Thanks to the Tower’s lean, there are special trouble spots. The lower south side (which is protected from cleansing rain and wind) is a magnet for dirty airborne particles, while the stone on the upper areas has more decay (from eroding rain and wind).
The Tower, now stabilized, has been cleaned as well. Cracks have been filled, and accumulations removed with carefully formulated atomized water sprays and poultices of various solvents.
All the work to shore up, straighten, and clean the Tower has probably turned the clock back a few centuries. In fact, art historians figure the Tower leans today as much as it did when Galileo reputedly conducted his gravity experiment here 400 years ago.