All direct flights to Pisa from the UK & Ireland

Mark Says

That said, the city is dominated by the Leaning Tower (or Campanile, to give it its original title), built in the 18th century and standing - sorry, leaning - 180 ft. Go early, if you’re planning to see this most famous of Pisa’s sights, and don’t take the under-eights (they’re not allowed up), the elderly (the 300 steps are narrow and, as you’d expect, slanted), anyone with vertigo (the guardrails at the very top are far from reassuring), or habitual shoppers: all bags have to be stored (free of charge) in ground-floor lockers. Next door, across the Piazza del Duomo, stands the Duomo itself (a.k.a. Santa Maria del Fiore), a cathedral celebrated for its beautiful marbled walls. (The nearby Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, full of original documents, plans and sketches, serves as a useful “how they did it” guide.) Given Italy’s fervent Catholicism, it’s no surprise Pisa goes big on religion: there’s the circular Baptistery, with its remarkable acoustics and pulpit, the Holy Field (Camposanto), where the Crusaders brought soil back from the Holy Land, and the Gothic spires of Santa Maria della Spina, to name just three of the city’s most sacred spots. Some distance behind the priest, you’ll find the artist, the trader, and the intellectual. It’s a sign of religion’s dominance in this part of the world that the city’s foremost art gallery, the National Museum of San Matteo, is housed in a Benedictine monastery. The rich Florentine merchants of the past lined the Via Santa Maria, and the Piazza del Cavalieri, with mansions and palaces that still stand today. And the mathematician and scientist Galileo Galilei also made his home here, a fact celebrated at the Domus Galileiana. Yet Pisa also knows how to party, as is evident from the illuminated Festa di San Ranieri and the Gioco del Ponte (Game of the Bridge), an annual competition between the city’s north and south banks that’s the equivalent of those cheese-rolling free-for-alls in certain East Midlands villages…