Pisa is a handsome Tuscan city of thick-walled Romanesque towers and pointy-spired Gothic buildings, enriched with the soothing symmetry of Renaissance architecture. The thing is, most visitors are interested in only one particular thick-walled Romanesque tower.

In truth, I’d also planned to stay just long enough to take a few photos before hopping on a train to Lucca – a city invariably prefaced by the word “lovely” in tourist literature. But Pisa grows on you, if you give it a chance, and besides, the swarms of tourists making a beeline for the hallowed tower are almost as interesting to observe as the architectural marvel itself.

On arriving at Piazza dei Miracoli, the Field of Miracles, the first thing you notice, apart from the world’s most instantly recognisable bell tower, is that nearly everyone is engaged in what could best be described as the Pisa Push. No doubt you’ve seen the photos: the lensman lines up the shot while his wacky, if unoriginal, companion pretends to push the tower back to a perpendicular position. For some reason, this is just about the most fun you can have in Pisa. Well almost. A few selfie seekers clamber onto each other’s shoulders and perform yoga poses or aim a kung fu kick at the cockeyed campanile.

Snaps captured and uploaded to social media, the hordes hurry off to the next stop on their Tuscan trip. Imagine that; a city with an entire industry built around an attraction that tourists visit for no more than 60 minutes. And on the rare occasion a tour guide lingers slightly longer than scheduled, snarky sightseers take to the internet to complain: “There was entirely too much time spent in Pisa, almost an hour and a half!”

I find a table at the imaginatively named Pisa Café, which is virtually in the shadow of the tower. A prime real estate location with prices to match, you would assume, and yet my delicious spinach and ricotta cannelloni costs a mere €8.50 (HK$73). Menu markdowns are another sign that holidaymakers are rushing back to the railway station rather than relaxing over a long, lazy lunch and soaking up what the city has to offer. And to think 2019 was designated the year of “slow tourism” in Italy!

I get chatting to the waiter about overcrowding in Venice and Cinque Terre – Italian destinations that are struggling to stem the tourist tide. He confirms that the vast majority of visitors come to see the Cathedral Complex (leaning tower, cathedral, baptistery and cemetery) but aren’t too fussed about exploring the rest of the city, which is fine by the locals. Municipal coffers benefit to the tune of about €21 million annually (from entry fees) but residents are able to go about their business with minimal disruption from the six million visitors. In fact, the only way things could be less disruptive for Pisans would be if the tower were dismantled and rebuilt next to the railway station.

Back at my B&B, the receptionist admits that I’m not the first “long-term” resident. “Last year a German woman booked in for three nights and visited a different town each day.” She asks where I’m going next and suggests Florence. I explain that I haven’t finished with the Piazza dei Miracoli yet, so any tour of the Tuscan capital will have to wait.

One good reason for getting to alpha sightseeing spots before sunrise – whether it’s Pisa, Petra or the Pyramids – is because you get to see that, beneath all the trap­pings of tourism, residents living near world-famous attractions go about their everyday business much as the rest of us do. In the grey half-light of dawn I’ve encountered postmen on their rounds in Venice, street barbers snipping away by the Taj Mahal and schoolchildren playing soccer outside the Colosseum.

At 6.50am, a total of nine people stand gawping at the wonky tower – and two of those appear to be on their way home after a big night out. As the minutes tick by, a few more early birds arrive. Joggers and cyclists come and go and an Italian family cross themselves repeatedly then strike a collective pose for posterity. A gardener removes weeds from the cracks in the white marble pavement outside the cathedral and a man wielding a dustpan and brush demonstrates a zero-tolerance approach to dust.

Unusually for such a high-profile tourist venue, entry to the cathedral complex is free. There is an €18 fee to climb the tower, although it’s debatable whether the view from the top is any better than that from down below, in the Piazza dei Miracoli.

Talking of miracles, the torre pendente should have toppled over centuries ago. Pisa takes its name from a Greek word meaning “marshy land” – a clue, if one were needed, that it might not have been the best place to build a bell tower weighing 14,500 tonnes. But like any up-and-coming medieval Italian city, Pisa was determined to invest its new wealth in audacious architectural vanity projects. Foundations were laid in the soft, spongy soil in 1173 but by the time builders got to the third storey, in 1178, the structure was already leaning.

In the 1930s, dictator Benito Mussolini set about fixing the problem by drilling holes in the soggy footings. These were then filled with concrete, the weight of which sank the tower further into the soil. No one dared say anything, however, as Il Duce owned the cement factory.

By 1990, the angle had reached a precarious 5.5 per cent and authorities feared the game was up. The attraction was closed to the public and major strengthen­ing work was undertaken over a period of 10 years. This was followed by exterior restoration repairs and, by 2008, engineers announced that the tower’s gravity-defying lean had been stabilised for the first time in its history. It would have been possible to completely straighten the legendary landmark but the tourist office might have struggled to promote the Perpendicular Tower of Pisa.

As the sun comes up, five nuns glide into the cathedral, re-emerging 15 minutes later wearing beatific smiles and strolling side by side. It’s a wonderfully camera-friendly moment but none of the tourists notice the photographic potential as they’re too busy sizing up Pisa Push possibilities. The nuns get out while the going is good, vanishing into thin air just as the tourist onslaught begins in earnest.

Soon, tower tilters of all nationalities are lined up against the “keep off the grass” railings to push, heave and shove for all they’re worth. At 7.20am, the first flag-following tour group pitches up and, five minutes later, the first argument of the day breaks out when a Chinese man gets in the way of a French woman who (perspective permitting) is attempting to lick the white arches of the tower.

International cooperation is still in good supply, however. Tourists without selfie sticks ask fellow sightseers for assistance with souvenir shots – there are plenty of us to choose from. I photograph a Kazakh couple, three German students and half a dozen Italian marines wearing what appears to be fancy dress but turns out to be their uniform.

Peak Pisa Push comes at 11am. I learn the words for “left a little”, “right another centimetre” and “hold it just there” in dozens of languages as legions of camera­men align their subject’s hands with the tower for maximum comic effect. For some reason, not a single snapper adjusts their own position, which would be far quicker and easier than all the “back a bit, forward a bit” nonsense.

In the congested tourist information centre, staff wear the glazed expressions of people condemned to spend their entire working lives dealing with the same inane requests. Most ridiculous question ever? “Someone wanted to know which building the leaning tower was,” an assistant says, her face contorted with contempt.

At noon there’s a changing of the guard. As the machine gun-toting soldiers at the base of the tower switch shifts, it occurs to me that they’re probably the most photo­graphed Italians in the country – Venetian gondoliers included. It’s also time for my shift to end. I return to the B&B to collect my bags and set off for the railway station.

It’s been a fascinating 48 hours. The Piazza dei Miracoli is noisy, tacky and a relentless assault on the senses. It’s chaotic, overwhelming and people are pushy in more ways than one. I might come back next year.