July 25? Thursday – Sam and friends left Florence on the noon train for Pisa, where they spent two hours. They arrived at Leghorn in the evening and boarded the QC.

At Pisa we climbed up to the top of the strangest structure the world has any knowledge of—the Leaning Tower.…this one leans more than thirteen feet out of the perpendicular. It is seven hundred years old, but neither history or tradition say whether it was built as it is, purposely, or whether one of its sides has settled. There is no record that it ever stood straight up….

Standing on the summit, one does not feel altogether comfortable when he looks down from the high side; but to crawl on your breast to the verge on the lower side and try to stretch your neck out far enough to see the base of the tower, makes your flesh creep, and convinces you for a single moment in spite of all your philosophy, that the building is falling. You handle yourself very carefully, all the time, under the silly impression that if it is not falling, your trifling weight will start it unless you are particular not to “bear down” on it [IA Ch. 24].