Pisa, Italy - Saturday, June 20
Location:  WHILE CLIMBING

John:  Up and up... and up, we climb... and around and around we go.  We're in the process of climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa. About half way up now.  It's at such a weird angle that it's easy to go up on one side but the other side is real steep.

Oh, excuse me... almost bumped someone.  There're people going in both directions.  There's only one walkway.  People are going up and down.  Banging into each other. There are various spots to steal a view, as we climb with false promises along the way that we're at the top but... are we at the top now? A little opening you can look out but no, this isn't the top.

Dick: They warn you not to go out on the outer wackways.

John:  Yeah, there are no railings, on the outer wackways.  They, whoever "they" is, take no responsibility should you happen to fall off. It's probably happened a few times, ay Dick?

Dick: There are 292 steps altogether.

John:  Since we're veterans at climbing, that is nothing.

How exciting, the tension mounts as we rise higher and higher.  And, it looks like we're just about at the top now. It's opening up. Yes, this does look like the top, Dick. 

And here we are at the top.

Dick: I guess this is a wackway we're on.  Nice view, but the building is not really all that big.  You can see, the land is really flat around here.   There are some hills over there though.

Yeah. That's the way we came in through the mountains over there. You should be able to see the ocean from here.  We're pretty close. Yeah, there it is, over that way.

Dick: Hey look, there're our bikes parked below.

John:  Yeah. Leaning against the railing.  We can see if anyone is ripping us off, but we can't do anything about it if they are. 

There are rows of tourist shops down there, see Dick? There must be a quarter mile of them. All of them selling little leaning towers.

And over that way is Corsica, just a ferry ride away.