The Leaning Tower of Pisa really leans!

I decided to go to Pisa today.
For a while I have wanted to see the Leaning Tower, and today seemed as good a day as any.
Pisa is only an hour away on the train, and as it is a UNESCO site, (and I harbour a secret - although not any more perhaps! - to visit as many as I can before I pop my clogs) it seemed too good to miss.
I always worry about things with a description in their name. It reminds me of Mai Po Marshes in Hong Kong, the bird reserve, sadly menaced by bird flu and threatened by the Kowloon Canton Railway expansion. I went when I was younger and left with an enormous sense of disillusionment. The Green Spotted something was brown. The purple streaked whatever - brown. The Turquoise and Ruby blah blah - well, you get the picture.
But the Leaning Tower - it really leans!

From my first glimpse at lunchtime to my last at sunset, the Tower is beautiful. Somehow I expected it to be taller (does that make me a complete philistine?) the stone grabs the light, and, for camera enthusiasts like me, it is a delight.
I took about 100 photos (new camera disease) so there is a small selection here.

For the real enthusiast (Mum and Dad? And maybe Lucy?) the rest are on my Picassa site here )
If only there were slightly fewer people to get in the way....

For the record, as I was on my own, I did not take the cheesy but almost obligatory holding-up-the-Leaning-Tower shot. Nor did I actually climb the thing. As a) I figure its leaning enough anyway, and it seems a shame to contribute and b) having climbed many monuments in the past, you get up there after close to 300 steps, look down, and think, in Italian terms - "E', Allora?" (And so?....) So all 100 something pics (I had time to kill!) are from ground level!