Eating Pizza in a Palazzo in a Piazza in Pisa

In Pisa, the doors of the duomo in the Piazza dei Miracoli (the Square of Miracles) are bronze and were made around 1180, 830 years of welcoming worshippers and visitors inside the cathedral.

The bas relief Biblical scenes are notable for the heads of the figures represented. Their golden pates are shining from the centuries of the devout who have rubbed their fingers on their small heads before entering the church.

The square was finished by the end of the 13th century, as was Pisa's brief reign of dominance as one of the great sea ports of medieval Europe.

There are little cafes alongside the square to drink a cold Peroni and reflect on the gentle downhill slide away from history's gaze for generations of Pisans.

The rooftops reveal terracotta tiles, jumbles of washing lines against a backdrop of warm-hued walls, faded to a soft blush of colour against the strength of the Mediterranean sunshine.

And often the glimpse, half seen in the distance, the thick, circular, colonnaded muscularity of the tower itself.

Surprisingly, the campanile of the duomo sometimes does not appear to lean at all.

Down on street level, in a maze of inter-weaving, interconnected alleys and lanes, lie the beating heart of all Italian towns, the piazzas. Squares seen through narrow gateways and dimly lit arches, the tenements hang their windows and roofs over each one.

Often a church squats in one corner, door ajar, beckoning in both friend and stranger. In the opposite corner, catching the sun as it squints through the square aperture opening up to the sky, will be a bar or enoteca.

The Vineria Di Piazza delle Vettovaglie is as good as any and better than
most. A cold Tuscan white wine served correctly chilled in a large glass.

The scene is scuffed and scruffy as the piazza's day-long market serves up a steady tide of shoppers and animation. The chatter of traders and the clatter of scales floats over the square.

The afternoon turns to evening, the market stalls close for the day and the sounds crying from all four sides of the piazza are of families, students, lovers and friends; drinking and eating and laughing as the dusk falls over the city.

The sky has shaded from blue and white, through amber and into the red of the night. So too does the wine give way to a deep scarlet Chianti and the satisfied review of a day well spent among Pisa's ancient treasures.