Italy · City break

Pisa City Guide

Pisa is more than a leaning tower. By the station there is a Keith Haring mural, on the Arno a Gothic church that was moved stone by stone, and on the Knights' Square the tower where Count Ugolino starved. A ready-made day route crosses the whole city and still ends up at the tower.

🗺️ Open Pisa interactively with map & navigation

Also available as an app for iPhone and Android. Free, with map, audio guide and offline maps. Premium is a one-time purchase, no subscription.

Our walking tours of Pisa

Ready-made routes from the station guide you through Pisa, to the right spots from the very first step, with no planning needed.

From Haring to the Tower

From Pisa Centrale station to Keith Haring's Tuttomondo mural, then along Via Sant'Antonio to the Arno and the little church of Santa Maria della Spina. Along the river to the Ponte di Mezzo, where north and south battle it out every year, then under the arcades of Borgo Stretto to Piazza dei Cavalieri with Vasari's facade and Ugolino's tower. Only then comes Piazza dei Miracoli with the tower, cathedral, Camposanto and baptistery, and just beyond it San Rossore station.

Tuttomondo. Pisa doesn't start with the tower, it starts with New York. A few steps from the station, in 1989, Keith Haring covered the outer wall of the convent of Sant'Antonio Abate, badly damaged in the war, with a mural of around 180 m². He gave it an Italian title of his own choosing, "Tuttomondo", the whole world. Thirty figures lock into one another. In the middle four people form the Pisan cross, and top right a pair of scissors made of two people cuts a snake in half. Down at street level a yellow figure is walking, usually read as a passer-by heading for the tower. Just like you. Haring died in 1990, and Tuttomondo is one of his last public murals.
Santa Maria della Spina. Via Sant'Antonio brings you to the Arno, and there stands a small church bristling with pinnacles, gables and statues. It takes its name from a thorn said to come from Christ's crown of thorns, which arrived here in 1333. The relic is now kept in Santa Chiara. Building began in 1230, and in the 14th century it was enlarged, partly by the workshop of Andrea Pisano and his son Nino. The riverbank kept giving way, so from 1871 the church was taken apart and put back together a few metres further east and on higher ground, with work lasting until 1884. John Ruskin, passing through Pisa at the time, was not impressed. Every statue on the outside is a copy, and the originals are in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo.
Ponte di Mezzo e Logge di Banchi. Mezzo means middle, and this is exactly where it is. A bridge probably crossed the Arno at this point as early as the 11th century. It was rebuilt several times, and in 1637 it collapsed. Today's bridge dates from after the war, because its predecessor was destroyed in the summer of 1944. In 1946 the people of Pisa voted in a referendum on its new shape and chose a single arch instead of three, finished in 1950. On the last Saturday in June the north and the south of the city face off here in the Gioco del Ponte, with teams pushing a cart along a rail laid across the bridge. At the southern end stands the open hall of the Logge di Banchi, built between 1603 and 1605 to plans by Bernardo Buontalenti as a market for wool and silk. Beside it on the riverbank is the late 14th-century Gothic Palazzo Gambacorti, now the town hall.
Borgo Stretto. Over the bridge, and the street turns narrow and shady. Borgo means suburb, because in the 12th century this street still lay outside the city wall. From the 14th century merchants built their loggias here, and under the Medici the arcades got masonry columns in place of the old wooden posts. At the entrance on Piazza Garibaldi stands the Madonna dei Vetturini, a copy of a figure attributed to Nino Pisano. Immediately on your right is San Michele in Borgo. Its 14th-century marble facade has three tiers of Gothic arcades. Along the street stands Casa Vanni from the 14th century, one of the best-preserved examples of a medieval loggia. Opposite, in Palazzo Bocca, Vincenzo Galilei, Galileo's father, lived from 1563. A short detour to the left leads to Piazza delle Vettovaglie, where the fruit and vegetable market is held today.
Piazza dei Cavalieri. This is where Pisa was governed, until Florence took over. From around 1140 the city government sat on this square, and in 1406 an envoy from Florence announced the end of Pisan independence here. In 1558 Cosimo I de' Medici had the square rebuilt for his Order of the Knights of Santo Stefano, who hunted corsairs across the Mediterranean. Giorgio Vasari gave the Palazzo della Carovana the sgraffito facade in front of you between 1562 and 1564. Since 1846 it has housed the Scuola Normale Superiore, founded by Napoleonic decree in 1810, where Enrico Fermi studied. To its left stands the Palazzo dell'Orologio. In a tower now built into it, Count Ugolino starved to death in 1289 with two sons and two grandsons. Dante turned it into one of the best-known scenes of his Inferno. Close by stands San Sisto, begun in 1087 after the victory of the Pisan fleet over al-Mahdiya in Tunisia.
Torre di Pisa. Giorgio Vasari was already puzzling over it in the 16th century. The builders didn't know the ground of Pisa, he wrote, and before they were halfway up the tower had tipped to one side. Work began in 1173 and, with two long breaks, went on for about two hundred years, on soft clay. The masons set the upper storeys slightly against the lean, which is why the tower is not just tilted but bent. On 7 January 1990 it was closed to visitors. Lead weights on the north side, and then soil extracted from beneath that side, turned it back by about 44 cm at the top by 2001, a little over half a degree. You can hardly see the difference with the naked eye, and today it leans at about 5.1 degrees. Up top hang seven bells, one for each note of the scale.
Duomo di Pisa. The cathedral came before the tower, and it was paid for with the spoils of war. Buscheto began building in 1064, funded by a tenth of the booty from a campaign against Palermo, and it was consecrated in 1118. The walls show how far the Pisans travelled in those days. Striped marble, stones salvaged from Roman buildings, and an elliptical dome modelled on eastern examples. Coming from the tower, you face the Porta di San Ranieri. This was the door the Pisans used, and its bronze panels by Bonanno Pisano were the only ones to survive the fire of 1595. Inside hangs the lamp that, legend has it, led Galileo to the law of the pendulum. The older lamp the story really belongs to is now in the Camposanto. Cimabue made the head of St John in the apse mosaic in 1302, and Giovanni Pisano the pulpit.
Camposanto Monumentale. The long white wall on the north side of the square encloses a cemetery. It was founded in 1277 to gather the graves that until then lay scattered around the cathedral. Tradition has it that the courtyard was filled with earth from the Holy Land. In the 14th century Buonamico Buffalmacco and others painted the walls with scenes of life and death. In the "Triumph of Death" three of the living meet three of the dead, while beside them Death swoops down on a cheerful party of young people. In the early 19th century the Camposanto became one of the first public museums in Europe. On 27 July 1944 an Allied artillery shell set the lead roof on fire, and the frescoes were badly damaged. When they were taken down, the underdrawings came to light, the sinopie, now in the museum on the south side of the square.
Battistero di San Giovanni. The massive drum at the western end of the square is the baptistery, founded on 15 August 1152. It measures 107 m around and just under 55 m high. Its architect signed his work, and "Deotisalvi magister huius operis" is carved on a pillar. From the mid-13th century Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni carried on building, and Nicola's pulpit of 1260 became a model for the sculptors who followed. Take a look at the dome. On the side facing the sea it is covered with red tiles, on the east side with lead sheets. This building leans slightly too, towards the cathedral. Inside, roughly every half hour a member of staff sings a few notes, and the double dome lets them ring on and on. From here you leave through the Porta Nuova in the city wall for the station.

Planning your visit

One day is enough, half a day too if your train moves on afterwards. The route runs 3.6 km with nine stops, from Pisa Centrale station to Pisa San Rossore station. Short on time, skip Borgo Stretto and the Camposanto. Book the tower climb in advance with a fixed time slot. Pisa is a university town, and in the evening the squares around the Borgo belong to the students. Lucca is a short train ride away, and there are five tips for the evening.

Going out & nightlife

Rooftop bars

Panorama Rooftop Bar, Grand Hotel Duomo. On the fifth-floor roof terrace of the Grand Hotel Duomo you take your aperitivo looking out over the rooftops to Piazza dei Miracoli and the leaning tower. The bar opens in the evening, and non-residents need to book. If you want the tower in the last light, reserve for just before sunset.

Nightlife quarters

Piazza delle Vettovaglie. Tomatoes in the morning, glasses in the evening. The Medici laid out the square as a grain market in the mid-16th century, and today it holds the fruit and vegetable market. Once the stalls are packed away, the arcades and the lanes across to Piazza Garibaldi fill up. This is where Pisa's students meet, and if there's no table you stand on the paving with your glass.

Food & restaurants

Osteria dei Cavalieri. A few steps from Piazza dei Cavalieri, the osteria on Via San Frediano cooks Tuscan food without fuss. Expect sliced steak with rosemary, grilled meat and seafood pasta, with a long wine list alongside. The dining room is small and cosy, so book for the evening.

Bars & clubs

Orzo Bruno. A beer bar on Via delle Case Dipinte, a few steps from Borgo Stretto. It pours craft beer, with small plates from the kitchen to go with it. The room is rustic and loud, the crowd mostly young Pisans, and for many it has been a regular late-night meeting place for years.

Stage & concerts

Teatro Verdi. Pisa's opera house opened on 12 November 1867 with Rossini's "William Tell", back then as the Teatro Nuovo, and has carried Verdi's name since 1904. The auditorium seats up to 900, and the stage is 32 m wide and 26 m deep. The programme covers opera, concerts and plays, and a small museum remembers the Pisan baritone Titta Ruffo.

See all stops for Pisa in the app →

Practical information for Pisa

Public transport

Operator. Autolinee Toscane (at) operates the city bus network in Pisa and the intercity buses in the province, as well as the city networks of Pontedera and Volterra. Pisa has had a new bus network since 8 January 2024. The two former LAM lines have since been called 1+ (formerly LAM Rossa) and 3+ (formerly LAM Verde) and are the lines with the most frequent service. Line 1+ runs from Ospedale Cisanello via the station and the Leaning Tower to the Park Pietrasantina stop, and line 3+ from San Giusto via the station to Pratale. City buses do not reach the airport directly. It is served by the PisaMover, a driverless people mover run by Pisamover S.p.A. with its own fare. Some bus lines to the surrounding area, such as 10 and 20 to Tirrenia and Calambrone, have a mixed fare, with the city ticket valid within Pisa and the intercity ticket beyond.

Network. City buses run by Autolinee Toscane, with line 1+ linking the station with the Leaning Tower. The PisaMover goes to the airport.

Modes of transport. Bus · PisaMover (airport people mover)

Operating hours. According to the winter timetable from 5 October 2026, line 1+ starts Monday to Saturday at 6am at Pisa Centrale station towards Torre di Pisa and the Park Pietrasantina terminus. Until 7am it runs every 20 minutes, then every 10 minutes until the evening. The last journey from the station towards the tower leaves at 8.24pm, and in the opposite direction the last bus reaches the station at 9.05pm. On Sundays and public holidays the 1+ starts at 7am and runs every 20 minutes until early afternoon, then every 15 minutes, with the last departure also at 8.24pm. Line 3+ runs on weekdays from 6am, every 12 minutes during the day. Lines 2, 4, 5 and 6 mostly run every 15 to 20 minutes on weekdays and often only hourly in the morning on Sundays and public holidays. Their last buses reach the station between 8.50pm and 9.05pm.

Night service. Pisa has no night network with its own lines. When the day lines finish around 9pm, the evening line 21 (San Giusto, Stazione, CEP, Torre, I Passi) runs on every day of the week. It runs from Pisa Centrale from 8.47pm to 11.17pm every 30 minutes, alternating via Crispi and Rustichello or via San Paolo a Ripa d’Arno, and stops at the Torre di Pisa 1 stop each time. In the opposite direction the last bus leaves the Torre di Pisa 2 stop at 11.53pm and reaches the station at 12.07am. Line 21 does not run on 31 December. The PisaMover to the airport runs until midnight, and from June to September until 1am.

Buying tickets. The city ticket biglietto urbano capoluogo costs €2 and must be validated on first boarding or activated in the app. It is sold in the at bus app, through the apps TABNET, URBI, Telepass and DropTicket, through the blink platform, at ticket machines, at authorised sales points such as newsagents and bars, and at the Biglietteria at Pisa in the Sesta Porta, Via Cesare Battisti 53, which is open Monday to Friday from 7.20am to 7.45pm, at weekends and on public holidays from 7.30am to 7.45pm, and closed on 25 December, 1 January and Easter. If you text PISA to 4880105, the ticket costs €2.40 plus a €0.29 fee from your mobile provider and is valid from receipt. Bought from the driver it costs €3 and must still be validated, and the driver gives no change. No tickets are sold on board during an inspection.

App and payment. Contactless payment with tip tap is available on all Autolinee Toscane buses. It works with credit, debit and prepaid cards and with smartphones and wearables on the Mastercard, Visa and American Express networks, and the fare is no higher than for the paper ticket. On city lines you hold your card against the contactless validator at the door each time you board, and a green screen with a beep confirms the purchase. On lines with a mixed fare and on intercity lines you tap when boarding and when getting off, and without the second tap the full fare is charged. A card or device counts for one person only, so for several fellow passengers you use different devices or buy in the app. The at bus app (version 7.12.1 for iOS and Android) shows the buses live on the map, lists the next departures for each stop and sells tickets directly from the journey planner. Through blink you buy up to 10 city tickets without registering, paying with Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Google Pay, Apple Pay or Bancomat Pay, and activate each one by a link from the email shortly before boarding.

Which ticket. For visitors, the €2 biglietto urbano capoluogo is almost always enough in Pisa. It is valid for 70 minutes from validation or activation, transfers are allowed during this time, and it is also valid in the city networks of Arezzo, Carrara, Grosseto, Livorno, Lucca, Massa, Pistoia, Prato and Siena. The book of ten tickets, Urbano capoluogo 10 viaggi, costs €18.20, which is €1.82 a ride. It pays off from the tenth ride and also suits groups travelling together. The tickets are validated in numerical order, and at an inspection you also show the stub (matrice) behind ticket number 1. Autolinee Toscane does not offer a day or multi-day ticket for Pisa. The ticket from the driver (€3) and the SMS ticket (€2.40) cost more. Anyone travelling into the city from Marina di Pisa, Tirrenia or Calambrone gets a reduced fare with the Litorale Pisano ticket. It is valid for 90 minutes and includes the city buses in Pisa. Autolinee Toscane publishes the current prices. For the PisaMover to the airport you need a separate ticket.

Fare zones. Within the city of Pisa a flat fare with no zones applies, and every journey costs €2 with the city ticket. Lines that go beyond the city boundary have a mixed fare, as required by the Tuscany region. On lines 10 and 20 towards Tirrenia, Livorno and Calambrone the city ticket is valid only between Pisa and the stop D’Annunzio Naviglio, on lines 60 and 70 only as far as Le Maggiola, and on 80 and 85 as far as the stop Aurelia. For all further sections an intercity ticket (extraurbano) is needed, the price of which depends on distance bands and starts at €2. If you pay contactless, you tap in and out on these lines, and the system then charges the correct band.

Tip. From Pisa Centrale station to the Torre di Pisa 1 stop, line 1+ takes 9 minutes according to the timetable and runs every 10 minutes during the day on weekdays.

Getting there

Main station

Location. Pisa Centrale lies south of the Arno, with the Piazza dei Miracoli and the Leaning Tower on the north-west edge of the old town. From the station it is around 2 km on foot across the old town and over the Arno, roughly 25 minutes. The city tourist office describes a dedicated walk for this, with stops from the station to the Piazza dei Miracoli. By bus, line 1+ runs Monday to Saturday every 10 minutes during the day to the stop Torre di Pisa 1 and takes 9 minutes, with line 21 taking over in the evening. The second city station, Pisa San Rossore, lies, according to the at network map, just north-west of the Piazza dei Miracoli. Regional trains take 4 to 7 minutes to get there from Pisa Centrale, and the journey costs €1.70. Some regional trains from Florence stop directly at San Rossore. RFI lists no ticket office for San Rossore, only toilets and drinks machines.

Long-distance trains. Pisa Centrale has 16 platforms for passenger services. On a weekday around 50 direct regional trains run between Firenze Santa Maria Novella and Pisa Centrale. The Regionale Veloce take 51 to 60 minutes, the Regionale 70 to 90 minutes. The fare is €9.80. From Firenze the trains run from 4.30am to 11.07pm. For long-distance travel, direct Frecciarossa and Frecciargento trains run to Roma Termini. The fastest is the Frecciarossa at 9.15am, which takes 2 hours 19 minutes. The other Frecce take 2 hours 23 minutes to 3 hours 11 minutes, and the Intercity just over 3 hours. Heading north, Frecciarossa, Frecciargento, Frecciabianca and Intercity run directly to Genova Piazza Principe in 1 hour 54 minutes to just over 2.5 hours, to Milano Centrale in 3 hours 47 minutes to 5 hours, and one Frecciarossa a day to Torino Porta Nuova in 3 hours 56 minutes. The Intercity also goes to Napoli Centrale without a change. The station has a ticket office, left luggage, a waiting area, toilets, a bar, a newspaper kiosk, a tobacconist, a tourist information office and a Polfer police station. The PisaMover to the airport starts at platform 14.

Opening hours. The network operator RFI gives no fixed opening hours for Pisa Centrale. The station opens and closes according to the first and last train of the day in the current timetable. The lifts to the platforms operate from 5.30am to 1.30am. If you need help boarding and alighting, book assistance with the Sala Blu in Florence. For journeys between 7.45am and 10.30pm you can do this in person or by phone up to one hour before departure.

Airports

PSA

Into the city. The PisaMover is a driverless people mover from the terminal to Pisa Centrale station with an intermediate stop at the San Giusto/Aurelia car park. The journey takes 5 minutes on average. It runs daily from 6am to midnight, and from 1 June to 30 September until 1am. From 11am to 6pm it runs about every 6 minutes, and less often in the mornings and evenings. PisaMover publishes the current frequency. Early in the morning and late in the evening only one cabin runs, at intervals of 12 to 15 minutes, on request. A single costs €6.50 and a return €13, and the ticket is valid for 30 days from purchase. Tickets are sold at 4 machines each at the airport, the station and San Giusto/Aurelia, and at the ticket office at the Via Aurelia car park, which is open daily from 8.30am to 6pm. At the station follow the signs AEROPORTO / AIRPORT to platform 14. If you continue by train, you can buy the train journey and the PisaMover together from Trenitalia, with Pisa Aeroporto as the start or destination station. To Firenze Santa Maria Novella that costs €16.30 in total, and the journey takes around 70 to 90 minutes.

FLR

Into the city. The Peretola Aeroporto stop of tram T2 is a 2-minute walk from arrivals and departures. The T2 takes 20 minutes to the Unità stop near Santa Maria Novella station. The first tram leaves the airport daily at 5am, the last on Sundays to Thursdays at 11.58pm and on Fridays and Saturdays at 1.15am. On weekdays it runs every 4 to 5 minutes during the day, on Saturdays every 5 to 6 minutes and on Sundays every 7 to 11 minutes. The city ticket biglietto urbano capoluogo costs €2 and is valid for 90 minutes in Florence. It is sold at the ticket machines at every stop, which also take cards, in the at bus app, or by contactless card at the reader on the tram. One item of luggage up to 10 kg and 55 × 40 × 20 cm travels free. Larger suitcases up to 80 × 45 × 25 cm and 20 kg need an extra ticket each, and anything bigger is not allowed. On weekdays, around two to three direct regional trains an hour run from Firenze Santa Maria Novella to Pisa Centrale. They take 51 to 90 minutes and cost €9.80, and the last leaves at 11.07pm.

Local quirks

The old town is a ZTL, and entry is checked electronically. The old town is a Zona a Traffico Limitato. Cars may neither enter nor park there at any time of day or night unless their number plate is on the white list (lista bianca). The access points are monitored by the ZTL Telematiche control centre of the Polizia Municipale. Guests of hotels, guesthouses, B&Bs and other commercial accommodation inside the ZTL may drive in. Your accommodation must register your number plate no later than 10 hours after you enter. The registration is valid for up to 3 days and can be extended. If the accommodation has a loading bay nearby, you may stop there for up to 30 minutes with a parking disc to unload. For parking, you can get a day permit for €12 through your accommodation. It allows driving and parking for 24 hours in the ZTL and in the blue parking spaces, but not in the spaces reserved for residents. Until the day permit has been registered, display the accommodation's parking ticket clearly behind the windscreen. Without registration, leave the car outside.
A train ticket from Pisa Aeroporto includes the PisaMover. If you travel straight on by train from the airport, choose Pisa Aeroporto as the departure station at Trenitalia. The PisaMover then costs €6.50 extra and appears on the same ticket, with no discounts on this part. Trenitalia does not sell the PisaMover separately, for which there are the machines at the stops.
One card pays for only one person on the bus. When paying contactless on the bus, each card or device counts for only one passenger. If there are two of you, one pays with the card and the other with the phone or watch, or you buy the tickets beforehand in the at bus app. When tapping in and out on the same journey it must be the same card.

Good to know

Currency: EUR €
Emergency number: 112
Plug type: C · F · L
Time zone: Europe/Rome
Driving: right

Speed limits. built-up areas 50 km/h, outside towns 90 km/h, 110 km/h on expressways, motorway 130 km/h

In rain, the motorway limit is 110 km/h instead of 130, and 90 instead of 110 on expressways. Drivers who have held their license for less than three years may drive at most 100 km/h on the motorway and 90 km/h on expressways. Within built-up areas, 50 km/h is the rule, though signposted city roads allow up to 70 km/h.

Tipping. Not expected. Bills often carry a coperto or servizio. If you were happy, round up.

Tolls. Most motorways are tolled. Take a ticket on entry, pay on exit. No vignette.

Access restrictions. Many historic centres are closed to non-residents. Cameras read the plate and the fine arrives home months later. Hours and boundaries differ from city to city.