Pisa

Morning tower climb, afternoon on the Lungarni

Book a morning tower slot online, then walk up from Pisa Centrale along Corso Italia, across the Ponte di Mezzo and up Borgo Stretto, about half an hour on foot. Reach the Piazza dei Miracoli with time to see the cathedral before your climb.

After the tower, visit the Baptistery and the Camposanto, the monumental cemetery along the north side of the lawn.

For lunch, head away from the tower to the old market area around Piazza delle Vettovaglie and order cecina or a bread soup. In the afternoon walk to Piazza dei Cavalieri and the Scuola Normale, then down to the Arno to see Santa Maria della Spina and the leaning bell tower of San Nicola. Near the station, look for Keith Haring's huge Tuttomondo mural on the wall of Sant'Antonio Abate. In the evening join the students for aperitivo on Via delle Case Dipinte, then have dinner by the river.

Cecina, pane sciocco and bordatino

Pisan cooking is Tuscan at heart and built on thrift. Start with the bread, pane sciocco, made without salt, a surprise to most first-time visitors and a good match for salty cured meats. Bread also goes into soups: pappa al pomodoro, a thick tomato and bread soup, and bordatino, made with kale.

Meat dishes use local beef breeds such as Chianina and the Mucco Pisano, and game such as wild boar and hare.

The local street food is cecina, a thin chickpea flour pancake, often eaten hot inside split focaccia with plenty of black pepper. For wine, Tuscan reds such as Chianti and Brunello are on every list, and many bars now pour local craft beer too.

Skip the restaurants facing the tower. The streets around Piazza delle Vettovaglie, Borgo Stretto and the Lungarni have better food and fairer prices, and in summer everyone drinks by the river after dinner.

Luminara candles, the Gioco del Ponte and rail escapes

Pisa sits on good rail lines, so day trips are easy. Florence is about an hour away by regional train, and Lucca, with its tree-lined walls you can walk or cycle around, is closer still. The sea is about 10 km west at Marina di Pisa and Tirrenia, reached by bus.

Inland, the hill spa of San Giuliano Terme was drawing wealthy travellers as early as the 1700s.

June is the month to be in town. On the evening of 16 June the Luminara lines the palaces along the Arno with thousands of small candles. The next day, 17 June, is the feast of San Ranieri, the patron saint, with a rowing regatta on the river. On the last Saturday of June the Gioco del Ponte sees teams from the two halves of the city, in Renaissance costume, push a heavy cart along a track on the Ponte di Mezzo. Winters are mild and rarely freezing, and summers are warm but cooled by the sea breeze.

Tower tickets, the cloakroom and the age limit

Leaning Tower slots go on sale on the Opera della Primaziale Pisana website 15 days before the visit. The ticket offices at the entrances to the square open 30 minutes before the monuments and stop selling 30 minutes before they close. Morning slots in spring and summer go first, so buy as soon as your dates are fixed.

Nothing bigger than your pockets goes up the tower. Handbags, backpacks and luggage stay in the free cloakroom, which keeps the tower's hours. Your ticket opens a locker, and a QR pass lets you collect your things right after the climb, so note the locker number and arrive 15 minutes before the time printed on the ticket. Anything left at closing time goes to the security office and can be claimed the next day with a clear description.

Families should check the age rule before booking. For 2026 the Opera does not admit children born in 2019 or later. Older children need a paid ticket, an ID showing their age and an adult with them, and one adult can take several children. Babies cannot enter. An e-ticket on a phone is accepted if the barcode is readable, and a lost one can be reprinted at the office with the order code and a passport.

Public toilets around the square cost €1, payable by card only, and are free with any paid monument ticket.

What the four monuments of the square hold

UNESCO listed the Piazza del Duomo in December 1987, and its four medieval buildings each repay time beyond the tower photo. The cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta set a new model for churches in Lucca, Pistoia, Sardinia and Corsica, and its side walls reuse Roman stone to present Pisa as another Rome.

The Baptistery has a double roof, a truncated cone inside a hemispherical cap, and the shape gives the interior unusually long echoes. The bell tower holds seven bells and now leans 3.9 degrees. It is built as two cylinders, one inside the other, with the spiral stair running between them, which is why the climb feels so enclosed. The Camposanto, one of the oldest Christian burial grounds of the Middle Ages, has 14th-century frescoes on life and death, among them the Triumph of Death. Galileo is said to have run his first experiments on the square in the early 1600s.

The walls walk and a botanic garden from 1544

The medieval walls are open as a raised walkway of about 3 km along the north side of the old town, ending just past the Piazza dei Miracoli. Tickets are sold at the Torre Santa Maria and the Torre Piezometrica, and from the top you look down on the cathedral roofs and the tower from an angle the crowds on the lawn never see. Hours change through the year and summer evening walks are often scheduled, so check before going. A restored stretch at Giardino Scotto, between the Torre di Sant'Antonio and the Bastione Sangallo, has a lift.

A few minutes from the square, the Orto Botanico belongs to the University of Pisa. Luca Ghini set it up in 1544, after Cosimo I de' Medici gave him the university's chair of botany, which puts it among the oldest university gardens in Europe, although it has since moved from its first site. Shaded paths and the botanical museum make it a good break on a hot afternoon; hours and prices have changed in recent years, so look them up on the university's site.

A combined ticket with the Orto Botanico has also been sold for the walls walk, worth asking about at either entrance.