Big Ben, the Washington Monument, the Eiffel Tower . . . Without getting overly Freudian, we tourists, it seems, have a fixation with perpendicularity. Why this should be so is beyond me; it is beyond anyone, I suspect, without a serious background in subconscious symbolism. But all over the world people are fond of visiting ceremonial edifices whose skyward thrusting has little function other than to be looked at and admired.
Stranger still, we seem to reserve our greatest fascination for those buildings which, despite their grandeur, exhibit oddities or imperfections. All of which goes to make the Leaning Tower of Pisa one of the most celebrated sites of cultural tourism in the world.
It is impressive, it is curious, it is alarmingly tilted, I said to myself as I stood on the Campo dei Miracoli in Pisa gazing up at 14,000 reclining tonnes of intricately carved marble. But is it culture?
For despite its undeniable beauty, I found it difficult to admire the tower. What almost literally swept me off my feet instead were the crowds.
The tour groups, the video cameras, the whole frenzied Pisa-today, Florence-tomorrow atmosphere was all too much.
The hell with crowds and subconscious symbolism, I thought. Surely, this was not what Italy is all about. Italy is about quiet sunny squares, good coffee, speeding Vespas, cypress trees, swallows swooping over convents and a thousand other things. But not this gawking crush. I ran from the Campo, made a dash for the station, and caught the first train. Half an hour later I alighted on the platform in the Tuscan town of Lucca.
The Lucchesi are, I discovered, people of eminent taste, culture and good sense.
In the first place, they did not build wobbly towers simply to be admired. Instead, they put their energy into practical things, such as protection from uncertain neighbours including Pisa and Florence. Lucca's great 16th-century brick wall, 12 metres high, 30 metres across and 4 km round, entirely surrounds the city. And very solid and steady it is, too - it does not tilt a bit.
Second, the townspeople do not rely for their wealth on tourist hordes. They derive their considerable prosperity from the manufacture of women's lingerie and high-quality olive oil - a delightful and diversified economy if ever there was one.
Third, they have chosen not to jam Lucca with that scourge of Italian towns, the car - the Lucchesi, men, women and children, are great riders of bicycles, making their town a happy, stress-free place for people like me to wander around not seeing tourist sights. Here were civilised people who had the measure of things. Lucca, I knew right away, was my kind of place.
I would not want to contradict the Lucca tourist office by claiming there is nothing there to see. There is. Even as aesthetically demanding a visitor as Henry James characterised Lucca as a town "overflowing with everything that makes for ease, for plenty, for beauty, for interest and good example".
The town's Romanesque churches, squares and palazzi, though, do not force themselves upon the visitor, and visitors do not force themselves upon Lucca, at least not in Leaning Tower-size numbers. Little has changed since its 13th-century heyday and off the main Tuscan tourist routes, Lucca remains elegant, well-mannered and graceful in the most relaxed and sociable sort of way. It is a place to sit back and just enjoy.
And so enjoy it I did. On my first day there I wandered about, dabbling in a little modest tourism here and there, but mostly just watching Lucca's pleasant life go by. e on the Piazza San Michele, the town's main gathering spot. From here I could survey the church of San Michele, a delightful example of Lucca's sensible approach to life. When the builders ran out of money before they could raise the church walls to the height of the facade, they simply stopped building upwards and put the roof on anyway. The result is several tiers of exquisitely carved arches, columns and loggias that give out on to thin blue air, creating one of the most beautiful facades in Tuscany.
The statued and lemon-treed gardens of the Palazzo Pfanner; the colourful mosaics of the Basilica of San Frediano; the home of Giacomo Puccini, complete with the piano on which he composed Turandot; all these I discovered at a leisurely and crowd-free pace.
By the time I had ridden a rented bicycle around the shady tree-lined top of the town walls, taken part in the passeggiata, or evening stroll, and eaten a hefty Tuscan country dinner at the Trattoria da Leo, I had decided I should have been born in Lucca.
I was ready for more next morning, but it was not to be. The following day turned out to be a national holiday, and Lucca - shops, offices, restaurants and cafes - was deserted and closed up tight. Foreigners on holiday in Italy go to places such as the Leaning Tower - when locals have a bit of leisure time, I wondered, where on earth do they go?
You cannot sit back and enjoy an empty town. Off I set on my bicycle, pedalling up into the foothills of the Alpi Apuane, the mountains that run along the coast of northern Tuscany. Wildflowers, shady olive groves and neat little farmhouses came and went as I puffed my way up past tiny hamlets. And then, crossing a steep spur and freewheeling down towards the little hill village of Collodi, all was revealed.
For Collodi was the home of none other than Carlo Collodi, the name adopted by the writer of that celebrated and much-respected morality tale, Pinocchio.
At least, that is the way the Italians see the story of the boy-puppet. They take him so seriously that in national polls Pinocchio has been shortlisted as one of the greatest novels of all time.
No wonder, then, that on this holiday all Lucca and at least half of the rest of the Italian population seemed to have showed up at the Parco di Pinocchio in Collodi.
The tour buses, the souvenir shops, the queues, the noise, the jostling crowds - it was all, of course, deja vu. It was dreadful. It was Pisa all over again. And there was not even a tall tower to gawk at - just a boy with an erectile nose.
I stood inside a concrete whale's mouth in the park's Land of Toys and, as delighted, shrieking children and adults ran through the spray of its water-spout, I reflected. No matter the quiet sense and style of the Lucchesi, no matter the elegance and grace of their town; in the end, the inhabitants of Italy's old and beautiful cities are no different from us crowds of foreign visitors. When we turn ourselves into tourists, we are all the same. May my nose grow longer if I tell a lie.
Accommodation is limited in Lucca and reservations are essential. The Lucca tourist office will assist with bookings. APT Lucca, Piazzale Verdi, Vecchia porta San Donato, Lucca. Tel/fax: 0039-0538-419689