Climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the summer of ’89

Travel memories | Helping a stranger up the Leaning Tower of Pisa | Having the last laugh

It was the long hot summer of 1989. Thatcher ruled Britain, Reagan ruled the USA and Chaka Khan ruled the airwaves with Ain’t Nobody. If that wasn’t your thing, there was New Kids on the Block.

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It was my first summer at university and like thousands of teenagers in the 1980s, I bought an Inter-rail Pass. For a hundred pounds, a tent, a backpack and a passport, students like me could enjoy the freedom of Europe’s railways. Inter-railing as it was called, opened our minds and hearts to new cultures, tasting new foods, making new friends, expanding our world to beyond our island.

I took a train from London Victoria to Paris (with a ferry in between) with two friends, Jack and Vick. It was a start of an epic journey that would last 50 days and take us to France, Italy, Greece, Egypt and back behind what was known as the Iron Curtain. The experience lasted just the summer, but it was the journey that would change me forever and make me fall interminably in love with travel and the world.

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In Paris, we marveled at the Eiffel Tower which was that year lit up in lights that read ‘100 ans’; we saw the Louvre and actually got to within 3 feet of the Mona Lisa; we ate brie and camembert cheese and breakfasted on crusty baguettes and jam; we climbed Mont Martre, learned boule; we visited the Pantheon, Les Invalides and the Pompidou. Paris was gobsmackingly amazing.

We lived frugally on a strict budget of £4 a day and slept in huge dorms lined with bunk-beds. We sat on sidewalks, benches and trains eating supermarket bread and cheese and would enter fancy restaurants and ask friendly waiters to fill our water bottles.

However, by our fourth and final day in Paris, we were sick of bread and cheese and close to the 13th century Gothic arches of Notre Dame we stumbled across the 20th century golden arches of a McDonalds.

We ran towards it like desert nomads rushing towards an oasis.  So much for trying new cuisines. Sod that! 

On the final rainy evening we boarded the 8:30 pm train bound for Italy. It was a small curtained compartment just to ourselves and I unfurled my sleeping bag and drew the curtains on the drab, industrial landscapes of Parisian suburbs, passing by.

I slept like a log and woke to chinks of sunlight from the curtains. I opened them and for the first time in my life saw the glorious Mediterranean Sea. I blinked; it was bluer than in my dreams. The sun was bright. People were swimming, jumping off rocks in to the sea, diving for urchins. There were palms, beach parasols where people breakfasted. It was Friday 18th August 1989. A special day in my travel memoirs.

The train arrived at Pisa and we hauled our rucksacks off.

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Inter-railing needed discipline and preparation. This was the 1980s which meant no internet, no mobile phones, no Air BNB and very few ATMs. You needed to carry a 200 page directory of European train timetables, a travel guide called “Let’s Go Europe”, paper cheques called Traveller’s Cheques and patience. Yes, lots and lots of patience.

When you were inter-railing, as soon as you got off the train in a new country you had to follow a set procedure as follows:
1) find a currency exchange. If it was too early in the morning, tough. Wait. Listen to your Walkman or something.
2) Cash your travellers’ cheques in to local cash (if you don’t know what these are ask your parents)
3) Find a phone booth
4) Look up the phone numbers of hostels
5) Realise that you have no coins to make a phone call in said phone booth.
6) Find a shop
7) Buy the cheapest thing you can find (e.g. chewing gum) so that you can get some change.
6) Make phone call to book the hostel.

Pre-internet, pre-mobile, this is how we travelled Gen Z.

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Vick who had worked in a Swiss Chalet spoke a few words of Italian. He could even do hand gestures. The hostels were all booked out; even the YMCA. Luckily we had tents and sleeping bags and followed the map in Lets Go Europe across hot pavements where lizards scurried till we got to Pisa’s campsite.

We quickly pitched our tents next to the tent of someone called Jonathan from Dartford (Why that was worth writing in my diary I don’t know) and walked to the Square of Miracles, across lawns, till we got to the bell tower of the Cathedral better known across the world as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

In those years the tilt of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was 5.5 degrees (later corrected to 3.97 degrees). It was a masterstroke of serendipity and poor enginerring, because if wasn’t leaning would it really have been that famous?

There I had the classic picture of me holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

I wanted to climb the tower but as Jack and Vick were scared of heights, I had to climb up it on my own. I queued up at the ticket office at the base of the tower and heard a voice in front saying “Does anyone speak English? Can anyone help me?”
She was middle aged lady in shorts, a t-shirt and wearing a bum-bag. I approached her.
“They don’t accept card and I’ve only got dollars, I’ve waited here for 30 minutes.”
I told I her had Italian Liras and she could pay me back later, so I bought her a ticket for 2,000 Italian Liras which was just $3.

Level by level we ascended the slippery marble floors, going round the tower, spiralling higher and higher as the red tile roofs of Pisa became smaller and smaller.
We made small talk, she was Connie from Texas and she said her husband was scared of heights and didn’t want to come to the top; I told her about my life as a Cambridge university student and she told me about her life in Texas.

As we got higher she got nervous and appeared to be in a mild panic as we approached the unprotected edges of the higher levels. You didn’t want to slip there. It would be certain death. I held her hand to make her feel safer and we stayed as far from the edge as possible.

I could see Jack and Vick down on the lawn below, waving as the Texan lady and I got to got to the top level where there was a bell. Together we marveled at the view of the cathedral, the basilica and countryside outside Pisa.

“My, I never expected I would be able to do this.” Her accent was slow and comforting with a slight drawl.

Coming down was easier level by level and when we got to the ground level she introduced me to her husband, a burly man in a baseball cap with hard handshake. .
“This is the man who helped me up the the tower.” she said to him.

She pulled a postcard card out of her handbag, wrote her details on it and popped it and the money in to a white paper bag which she handed to me. “Let us know when you’re in Texas, do look us up. We’d love to show you around.”

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I went back to find Jack and Vick sitting on lawn, enjoying the power of the Italian sun. “He’s scored,” they teased. And the teasing went on till we got to the campsite.
My diary says we ate spaghetti and ice cream that evening at a roadside cafe to the sounds of crickets and as Vick and Jack chatted, I pulled out the postcard with the words ‘Connie Patterson, Beaumont, Texas, 77702’ written on it. At the bottom of the bag I was expecting 2,000 Italian Liras, about $3, but this was a $50 bill. $50! That was a lot of money in those days! Still is.

I never told Jack and Vick about the $50 bill; I just let them them carry on talking. Infact I didn’t even write it in my diary and I’ve never told anyone about it. Till now.

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