 (PISA, Italia, Saturday June 17 3:32 PM ET) REUTERS News Agency Leaning Tower of Pisa Opens Briefly for Students 
 The Leaning Tower of Pisa briefly opened its doors to the general public for the first time in 10 years June 17, letting in 100 schoolchildren for a guided visit. The tower is lit up with new lighting, June 16. The tower is seen through two big cables that bolster it (Reuters) . PISA, Italy (Reuters) - The Leaning Tower of Pisa briefly opened its doors to the general public for the first time in 10 years on Saturday, letting in 100 schoolchildren for a guided visit. The special tour of the 14th century tower, a symbol of Italy, was organized to celebrate the feast of the Tuscan city's patron saint and came exactly a year before the monument is due to be officially reopened. Engineers are working on a complex project to stabilize, but not totally straighten, the 189-feet bell tower, which was leaning 16-feet from the vertical at the start of the latest stabilization work in 1998. Giant steel braces were applied to protect the 150,000-ton tower during excavation designed to take it fractionally back toward the upright. The lean has been gradually reduced. On Saturday, the tower was tilting 5.6 inches than in January, a spokeswoman for the project said. The goal is to reduce the tilt by 18 inches and restore the marble masterpiece to its angle of 300 years ago. ``Then, we'll be set for the next two and a half centuries,'' spokeswoman Edda Stagno said. She added that among the schoolchildren who climbed 294 steps to the tower's bell was a group of students from the French city of Angers, which is twinned with Pisa. The tower is built on a spongy subsoil in an area known as the Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles). It was started in 1173 as a belfry for the nearby cathedral and has been leaning to the south since its third story was added in 1274. It was completed in 1350. |
 (PISA, Italia, June 17, 2000 3:54 p.m. EDT) Associated Press Pisa students get exclusive tour of Leaning Tower 
 A group of students wait to climb Pisa's leaning tower, Italy, Saturday, June 17, 2000, in what officials called a "symbolic opening" for one day. The famed tower is scheduled to open to the public next year after 11 years of work to keep it from toppling over. (AP Photo/Riccardo Dalle Luche) Tourists take a rest at the foot of Pisa' leaning tower in Pisa, Italy, Friday, June 16, 2000. The leaning Tower of Pisa is still leaning, but about 250 years worth less than it did. The famed tower is scheduled to open to the public next year after 11 years of work to keep it from toppling over. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) By ALESSANDRA RIZZO Fabio Vasarelli admitted fighting off a little dizziness as he climbed the slippery spiral staircase of the Leaning Tower of Pisa on Saturday. "I knew this was going to happen, but I couldn't miss this opportunity," the 23-year-old Pisa native said. "I'd never been here, and it's just amazing." Vasarelli was among a privileged group of 100 Pisa University students who were allowed inside the medieval tower. It has been 10 years since the last visitors enjoyed its breathtaking view of Piazza dei Miracoli, and most of the students had never been inside -- or were too young to remember. Saturday's visit was a symbolic gesture designed to show off a project aimed at correcting the tower's perilous lean - and reassure the public that it would someday again be open. When the tower was closed to the public a decade ago, officials said it would be open again in just a few years. The ambitious plan to stop the tower's increasing tilt has taken far longer than expected, but officials say it is succeeding. The plan, regarded with some skepticism at first, includes attaching a pair of steel "suspenders" to the tower, and then the excavating soil under its foundations. When the work began, the tower leaned 6 degrees, or 13 feet, off the perpendicular, on its south side. Now it is 5 inches straighter - back to the levels of more than a century ago, experts said. So far, about 250 cubic feet of earth have been excavated; 460 cubic feet still have to be taken away. To stabilize the tower during the work, 800 tons of lead counterweights were placed at the base. Project officials hope to have the work finished next spring. When they do, the monument will lean 17 inches less than it did in 1700 -- enough to stabilize it, but not enough for the naked eye to detect. "At that point, the tower will be OK for two or three centuries," said Michele Jamiolkowski, who heads the committee of experts monitoring the $27 million project. The experts say that even when the tower reopens, visitors might not be allowed in on a regular basis. "The monument might hardly sustain the millions of tourists who would flock to it every year," warned a member of the experts' committee, Giorgio Macchi, pointing out how past visitors have worn down the stairs. Macchi said the dirty marble facade will also need some restoration. Tests on the facade are now in progress. Construction of the 190-foot high tower began in 1173 to celebrate the glory of Pisa, in those years a wealthy port town. The soil underneath its foundations began sinking when it was just 34 feet high, starting its centuries-long tilt. The builders forged ahead, however, managing to complete it in 1360. Only a handful of people have been inside since the tower was closed to tourists. Even the lucky ones allowed in Saturday couldn't go all the way up the tower's 293 steps. Their tour ended on the second of the monument's eight stories of arches and columns. "Thank God," Vasarelli said. "I don't know if I would have made it." |
