Guided Tour Over On Your Your Own?

Likely you cannot spend much time in both Pisa and Florence, but a quick stop in Pisa and time in Florence is certainly possible. To get to Florence from La Spezia, you will likely have to change trains in Pisa anyway, you can take a quick bus ride to the tower, take a look, then back to the train station to catch the next train to Florence or hit it on your way back. I would not plan on climbing the tower, just a quick look around. For David, get your tickets to the Academia ahead of time, that will give you a time slot, all of the other sites you mention are clustered in the city center and require no planning ahead. As for the train, there are plenty of departures each way, I would just plan on getting tickets as you go, not committing yourself to any specific train ahead of time.

The question is: How long is the ship docked at La Spezia? Depending on type of train and layover time, the train travel time from La Spezia to Florence is on average 2 and 1/2 hours, nearly all solutions require one train change (generally in Pisa). To that you need to add the time from the La Spezia port to the station (maybe 10 min. once you get on a taxi) and the time waiting for the train. Trains are frequent, about one or two every hour going to Pisa-Florence. However even in the best case scenario, from the moment you disembark to the moment you alight the train in Florence, you are looking at over 3 hours. So. About 7 hours are gone just for traveling there and back to the ship. And I'm not even talking about the pit stop in Pisa to see the leaning tower. That's going to take at least an hour of your time too. Let's go back to the first question. How long is the ship at the port before you need to get back on board?

Hi Roberto and Paul, Thanks for the response, my ship will be dock from 7am to 7pm. Well I was thinking about booking a 'do your own Florence' which means someone will pick us up from la speiza drive us to Florence, do what we need to do there, then take a train ride from Florence to Pisa and see the tower and take the train back to the port. What you think about that plan?

A car is not that much faster. From La Spezia to Florence I've never made it in less than 1h 45m to 2 h. But that could give you an extra 1 hr time in Florence. So, if they can have you in Florence by 10:00, you could visit the city for a few hours. But you need to be at the station by 15:00 (3pm) at the latest, if you want to just do a quick drive by at the tower in Pisa. These are some options (Dep-Arr information). Firenze SMN - Pisa 14:28 - 15:28 14:53 - 16:03 15:00 - 15:49 < Latest reasonable time to see the tower. 15:28 - 16:28 < With this train you need a taxi from Pisa station to the tower, take a picture while the taxi has the engine still on and drive right back to the station (still cutting it very close). Pisa-La Spezia (dep. - arr.) 16:42 - 17:52 17.05 - 18:19 Latest train to catch the ship on time.
17:36 - 18:54 (this is too close to the ship departure)

That might work for us. So that draft you made is if our car drop us off on time at Florence right? So that options you gave me is if we arrived at Florence at 10am?

I am heading back for my 6th trip to Italy. My first was on a tour and I never regretted it. Italy is confusing, but not after the first time. Spend a few bucks on a tour and LEARN. The next time it will be a piece of cake. Not saying that you can't do it on your own first time, but there will be stress. As for Pisa, stop off, leave your bags at the train station, go to the Leaning Tower, take your photos and get back on the train to Florence.

If it were me, I would plan to see Florence & Pisa in a future trip when I could take several days to really see and enjoy the area, and instead spend the day in Cinque Terre. It's much closer, so you won't feel so rushed.

Hi, thanks for the response! I'm only gonna be in La Speiza for one whole day. Because I'm part of the cruise. I am just wondering if I can see both pisa and Florence from the port of La Speiza.

Partly it depends on where your ship berths, partly on how big it is and how efficient it is. Generally you won't be off the ship until about an hour after it docks. Be in line early to leave the ship, though passengers on the ship's tours usually have precedence. You will have to be back on board the ship at least 30 minutes before the 7 p.m. sailing time. You have to allow for possible train delays of a few minutes and time to get from the train station to your ship. You can find lots of information at cruisecritic.com on where the ships berth, how to get from the ship to the train station, etc. Florence is a pretty easy city to navigate. The train station (Santa Maria Novella - of Florence SMN on the train websites) is a 10 minute walk to the Duomo. From there, everything else except Piazzale Michelangelo (take a taxi or a bus there and back, depending on time constraints) is a 5-10 minute walk. I think you will have just enough time to see everything you want in Florence without stopping in Pisa. Edit: be sure to have a map of Florence and good walking directions to all the sights.