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Showing posts with the label TRAVEL - Pisa

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Seville

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SEVILLE Sevilla After living up to some wonderful moments at Granada, the birthplace of the renowned Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, we decided to further our coadventure through the heartland of the southern Iberian Peninsula, composed of lowlands, mountains and valleys. You’ve got it right. To arrive at Seville, we traversed the fascinating Spanish heartland. The landscape presented some vistas composed of rustic plains, lowlands, winding roads through the Sierra and then vast stretches of olive orchards. About 200 years back, a couple of decades after Napoleon’s army plundered and destroyed parts of Alhambra, an American diplomat and writer, Washington Irving and his Russian counterpart traversed the path from Seville to Granada. It was highly adventurous then, because of the fact that the transport system at that time was horse-drawn carriages and muleteers. It was such that they could ‘wander among the romantic mountains of Andalusia’ (Tales of Alhamb...

Pisa

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Pisa Pisa - the Leaning Tower There are several trains from Florence to Pisa Centrale. We took the morning train. We were at Pisa Centrale station in about a little more than an hour. Pisa station is one of the major railway junctions of Tuscany. An old station, which opened in 1871, has a beautiful exterior.  We boarded a bus from just outside the station, which took us directly to the Leaning Tower. Located at the Piazza Dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles), this walled area is regarded as one of the finest architectural complexes in the world. The most astonishing monument at this UNESCO World Heritage site is a campanile (a free-standing bell tower) 186ft11inch tall on the higher side and weighing around 14.5 tonnes which started tilting during its construction in the 12th century. It went on leaning through the centuries until remedial measures were taken about 25 years back to arrest further tilt. Finally, the tilt has been reduced to about 4 degrees. The constructi...