Pisa: This town sucks

'Why all the hate?' I hear you say.

OK. Well in Rome I found this:

It's a weird statue of Batman and Superman. My only interpretation is based on what one can draw from the similarities to The Creation of Adam; in that it suggests that Superman is the creator of Batman. It is possible, while drunk no doubt, to get into a deep discussion of the parallels that can be made here. This modern piece of art is in no way the best thing in Rome; yet there is more cool in it, than in the entirety of Pisa.

I thought I'd give Pisa a chance today, since I've been here five times and have only really seen the inside of the dipartimento di scienze archaeologiche and, naturally, the tower.

The leaning tower

Yes. Pisa is famous for the result of a bad piece of geological survey and poor architectural design. Oh and Superman III which, lets be honest, is the main reason people know of the place.

To be fair, the tower is decent; though it is much more fun to watch tourists posing (nothing wrong with that mind you).

(I stole this pic btw Credit Martin Parr)

The cathedral next to it isn't bad either. In fact lets face it, for all its crappery, the one good thing that religion has given us is some nice looking things. I mentioned Michelangelo's fresco in the Sistine chapel earlier, and the duomo in florence is another spectacular example of this:

but I digress.

Pisa is a dump.

From the train station to the tower requires walking down one long street. It's full of the typical high street shops you'll find anywhere and a few coffee places. You could be anywhere. Today I went in search for the nice things in Pisa off this beaten track, and I used a map with places of excitement marked.

The one cool looking thing that I saw was the water wheel and terminus of the aquaduct. I thought there'd be some cool fountain or whatever:

...not exactly the Trevi fountain is it. And that about sums it up. Other places are less spectacular.

It's not all bad though. This trattoria serves the FASTEST food I have EVER received. And I eat at McDonnalds! It was pretty damn good too. Seriously, they have a time machine or something. Somebody should check that out.