Florence to Cinque Terre-what about Pisa?

For me, I enjoyed the Duomo and the Baptistery much more than the Tower. They're all clumped together on the biggest lawn in Italy. We did it as a day trip from Lucca, where you can catch a bus that drops you off right next to the Campo dei Miracoli, the "campus" where all these buildings (and about 5000 souvenir stands) are located. We wandered around Pisa a little bit, and were underwhelmed. Here's a link to a video I took inside the baptistery that demonstrates the remarkable acoustics, followed by a few pictures in Pisa (turn your speakers on): http://tinyurl.com/PisaVideoPics2008 Click on "Show Info" in the upper right corner for a brief explanation of each.

My wife and I had planned to skip Pisa but conversations with our innkeeper at Florence convinced us to stay one more night in Florence, and take the bus from Florence to Pisa in the morning, then to Lucca in the afternoon and back to Florence at night. Perfect day, plenty of time at Pisa, and enough time for a rental bike ride around Lucca on its city wall.

I had always skipped Pisa as being a tourist trap. But then visited on a short day trip from Lucca and am really glad I did. The Leaning Tower is beautiful, as is the Baptistry.

Jeff, am I seeing from your message that you wish to do Pisa and the CT on the same day? If yes, you have quite a journey on your hands. You are looking at 5.0hrs round trip train time from Florence. There are early trains that can get you to Pisa quite early. Trains depart at 6:10 and 6:53 getting you there at 7:32 and 8:06 respectively. That even beats the street vendors. You can leave later if you wish. The walk to the tower and adjoining field of miracles takes about 30-35 minutes each way. You can shorten the time in a taxi if you wish. IMHO, there is not much else to see in Pisa. When you get back to the train station just buy a ticket, validate it in the little yellow box and jump on the next train to the CT. You can even buy the ticket before you leave Florence. If you buy a ticket on the Regionale train, you don't need seat reservations (not permitted on the Regionale) and the ticket is good for the run for 60 days or until you validate it. If you want more info on how to do this, message back and we can explain.

I guess I should be more specific? What we like to do is stop in Pisa en route to CT from Florence. Sort of like Leave Florence-stop in Pisa-continue on to CT to spend two nights, then travel on to Rome. How much time do I need in Pisa?

This is easy to do and lots of people do it. You just take the train from Florence to Pisa, get off, see the sites, then take a train from Pisa to CT. You can buy your tickets the day before or that day in the Florence station. In Pisa, we bought our tickets from Pisa to CT after we got off the train but before we headed out to see the sites. When you get to Pisa, you can either walk straight out of the terminal and keep walking straight down a traffic free streetjust follow the crowd. Or, there are some buses and cabs just to the right after you exit the terminal. The walk is several blocks. To take a bus back to the station, exit at the far end of the grounds (farthest from the traffic free street), buy a ticket at the tobacco stand and cross the road to the bus stop. There is a taxis stand just outside that exit but it was a Sunday for us and there were no taxis. We didn't want to walk back because it was hot and we needed to get back quicker. You will want to store your luggage at the station. Give yourself plenty of time to get back to the station and retrieve your luggage before your train departs. Because so many people do this at Pisa, it takes a little while to get your luggage. Most places, you just walk up to the window and get your luggage fairly quickly but it took longer in Pisa.

Definitely easy and worthwhile - just check your bags at the pisa station. My friend and i did it in the reverse - went from CT to Pisa, checked our bags and saw the tower and duomo (baptistery was closed), then took a taxi to the airport where we rented a car. I would say a couple hours would probably suffice, plus the time to bus or walk from the station out to where the tower is. we took the bus there and reversed Rick's walking tour from the station to the tower and felt very underwhelmed with the rest of Pisa.

We easily did this last year. Trained from Florence to Pisa. Checked our bags. Walked through town on the peds only route, bought our tickets, wandered the grounds and took pictures, walked back to the train station, retrieved baggage and got our tickets to CT (you change trains in Spezia for CT). The process is explained in Rick's book and I think we spent about 4 hours total doing this. We did not walk up in the leaning tower and only went in the cathedral at Pisa. We don't miss doing any of the other things but we're glad we stopped at Pisa to see the buildings. We stayed in Manarola. We checked into our room and had time for the Via del'Amore walk to Riomaggiore. Had wine and snacks at Bar & Vini A Pie' de Ma' restaurant right at the end of the trail. One of our favorite experiences to sit here, perched on the edge of the cliff soaking up the sunset beauty. In my blog, you might information of use. Entry on Pisa: http://kaybobdoitaly-2010.blogspot.com/2010/06/pisa-june-3-2010.html.
Entry on afternoon/evening in CT: http://kaybobdoitaly-2010.blogspot.com/2010/06/manarolacinque-terre-june-3-2010.html. There are photo stories that go with these but I'm never sure if people can click into them or not. The blog address is: http://kaybobdoitaly-2010.blogspot.com/. Sometimes the photo links work better if you start the blog at the beginning and jump to articles via the archives listings.

Jeff, just to note a bit more on luggage storage, Pisa has an excellent staffed luggage storage area. While at the train tracks, face the train station, turn right and go down to the last two buildings on your left. The tracks will be on your right. Go between the last two buildings and you will see the luggage storage area. When we did it, the cost was 3E per bag. They make copies of your passport picture and place it with you luggage. You will need your passport to get your luggage back. It's quite safe.

We stopped in Pisa while traveling from Lucca - C.T. We checked our luggage at the station and shared a cab with two guys we met on the train that were doing the same thing we were. We took the bus back to the station. We were able to make the stop in Pisa while traveling on the Lucca - C.T. ticket. As long as travel is completed in a certain period of time (6 hours?) you don't need another ticket.

Andrea, is that 6 hours from the time you leave Florence to the time you arrive in CT? Thanks.