Visited Pisa’s leaning tower first, of course. Climbing its stairs had a strange effect on the sense I have learned to  call proprioception: the sense that keeps track of where the body parts are.  One goes round and round on stairs that are slightly off the horizontal. Since there are  no reference points for the eyes, this makes for the same dizzy-making sense of unease that the work of Carsten Holler at Boijmans had: an uneasyness caused by body and mind being just a little at odds.

The leaning tower is really the bell tower of a cathedral church. It is  one of the most famous pieces of faulty engineering  ever – a mistake turned around. Apart from that, it is really beautiful.

Saw some good frescoes in the cathedral close and admired the ingenuity of those who try to persuade the plaster not to crumble. Seems an uphill struggle. Best fresco we happened upon outside the cathedral close – an original Keith Haring in a more modern part of town.  It didn’t look out of place: it has the  colours and the summing-up of forms and  shapes that link it  to the older murals.

Eldest girl applied the trick she learned at the leaning tower – a foreground/background thing, you see Keith doing the same in the picture above . Her way of putting  herself in contact with the wall.