"Pisa - Snooze City" Pisa by JohnnySpangles

When you get off the train at Pisa you feel an overwhelming urge to shout loudly and wake the place up. This is because once the train clatters off you’ll find yourself in silence and the whole city quietly dozing in the sun.

Stationary cars melt slowly on the roadside in the midday heat. Old men, with heads bowed, snooze the day away on chairs by their front doors and the sun-baked cats at their feet stretch their mangy, manky bodies without ever opening their eyes.

The only discernable activity in this slumbering little city is the languid progress of the River Arnos and the constant stream of tourists between the train station and the Campo dei Miracoli, where the leaning tower and other wedding cake confections await their eager cameras.

The Campo is deemed miraculous (in Italian) because of the wealth of architectural riches that are crammed into a relatively small area and only separated from each other by immaculately manicured lawns. It’s a little bit like a Renaissance theme park and all it lacks are concession stalls selling Mickey Mouse ears, Mona Lisa stick-on smiles and David willy-warmers.

Although it does make you wonder why on earth they built such a rich conglomeration of bright white Miracolis in such a comatose little town. I can only conclude that it was probably an attempt to provide an eternal source of revenue for the locals. Thus they can sell little plaster models of the leaning tower for a couple of hours each morning and then leave the rest of the day free for the more important activity of heavy-duty slumbering. Surely these buildings would have been better placed in Florence or Venice where they’ve always been a lot keener on ripping tourists off for twenty-five hours a day.

PISA - JOHN THE BAPTIST TRIES TO WAKE JESUS UP.

There’s the tower, the one that leans, you must have heard of it. There’s also a church, a baptistery and a cemetery. That’s where the scrummy looking statue of the lady on the left resides, although the lady herself is probably not looking quite so hot these days.

The only known human movement that ever took place in Pisa occurred in the church. Hanging from the roof is the lamp that Galileo swung to formulate his theories of pendulum motion. He pushed it once, then dozed off for the afternoon and was surprised to find it still swinging when he awoke in the early evening. Indeed it was a Miracoli, or so he reckoned.

The huge doors of the church feature meticulously sculpted bronze reliefs of biblical scenes. Expressions of agony and ecstasy stare down at you from faces that haven’t moved for centuries. The characters are frozen in their own time and space. Rather like the locals.

I ASKED THIS ONE TO MARRY ME.

As most of the population seem to be eagerly practicing for their own funerals, it comes as no surprise that the cemetery is one of the most interesting places to visit. It is a rectangular marble courtyard with little alcoves featuring lifelike statues of the great, the good or the just plain loaded.

However, I might have got the place entirely wrong. Maybe when the last tourist gets on the last train out of town the mayor blows a whistle to signal the start of an all-night long orgy of partying, boozing and public fornication.

Maybe that’s why they sleep all day.

• Pros:VERY FETCHING ARRANGEMENT OF MARBLE BLOCKS
• Cons:TAKE AN ALARM CLOCK, JUST IN CASE YOU NOD OFF.
• In a nutshell:EVER READ THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS?