PISA - Which train station do we want, heading in from Lucca?

Mom,

Although Pisa San Rossore is closer to the tower, I'd suggest using Pisa Centrale as there will be more frequent trains. From Centrale, you can take a Bus or Taxi to the Tower (details in the guidebook). If you need to store luggage, Pisa Centrale also has a Deposito Bagagli.

Many of trains you'll be using on the routes you mentioned will be Regionale trains, so there's no benefit or price breaks for buying advance tickets, and they never sell out. You can easily purchase tickets either at a staffed ticket counter or using the Kiosks (which have an English language menu). With locally purchased tickets, it's important to validate prior to boarding the train on the day of travel, or you may be subject to hefty fines which will be collected on the spot!

Your destination station in Florence will likely be Firenze SM Novella (depending on where you're staying in Florence).

Coming from Lucca get off at the PISA SAN ROSSORE station. All trains coming from Lucca stop at San Rossore, before proceeding to Pisa Centrale. Less than 10 min walk from San Rossore and you are at the Piazza dei Miracoli. Cathedral, bell tower, baptistery and historic Campo Santo ( cemetery) are all there. If you go for just a quick photo opp, 20 min are enough. If you visit cathedral, baptistery, climb tower, give yourself a couple hours. After you are done go to the Pisa Centrale station. It's a 25-30 min walk, or a 5-10 min taxi or bus ride. There are almost 60 trains a day each direction to Florence, so plenty of choices. The last one is at around 10:30pm. The journey depends on the train. The speedy regionale (regionale veloce) takes about 50 min. The regular regionali make more stops, so they take 60 to 75 min on average.

Mom to 4,

If you plan to climb the tower when you visit Pisa, you may want to book your tickets in advance, otherwise you may have a long wait.

Enjoy your trip with your family!

As Roberto said 20 minutes to 2 hrs.

Probably depends on how hot it is and how cranky the kids are, how much time you decide to spend. :-)

If you think climbing the tower is a 'must do' get tickets in advance as suggested by Priscilla. Otherwise you will wait a LONNNG time. And there is no shade where the line forms

Hi there - we just went to the leaning tower yesterday. Hundreds of people with lots of kids. Be prepared for the heat and bring water. You can buy it at the pisa centrale station. I am not sure about the earlier station but I assume that they will have water too. We opted not to buy tickets to climb the tower because my partner has a heart condition and it was 37 celcius. We spent about an hour enjoying the area and then caught the bus back to the train station for 1.5 euros each. It was a lovely day trip from Florence. And I also underline the importance of validating your tickets prior to boarding. It is a little green machine that is on a wall near the entry to the gate. Have fun! 😊

You have received lots of good advice but I'll add my 2 cents based on the ages of yr kids, and what i learned on our trip to pisa, which was riddled w a series of small mistakes at least for me. We did it as a day trip from florence, on a sunday afternoon, trying to still get reset from our 5pm arrival the day before. I am glad we went...and tickets in advance are imperative if you want to climb the tower.

We got off at central station, it is a serious hike from there to the tower. Enough so that my internal dialog for most of the sclep was "where the hell IS this thing?" I cant imagine doing that w four kids who might have opinions about the distance, so id absolutely recommend rosore station. Or add the bus if you use central station
It was crowded at the field of miracles, enuf so that when 2 of my adult companions stopped to take photos and the other 2 of us walked on not knowing they'd stopped, we could NOT find each other in the crowd. So, w a family of six, have the plan we did NOT have, like "we'll meet on east side of church." I had preordered tickets, my 3 friends did the tower (i do not do heights) i did the bapistry, and was happy w my choice. Afterwards i waited in the lobby of museo delle sinopie on the southwest edge of the complex. This i would absolutely recommend for yr young family.... there's an area of padded benches and a screen showing some antimated short movies about attempts to straighten the tower through the centuries. To my memory there were 3 or 4 movies of less than 5 minutes each. If they were in Italian they had subtitles, and were very engaging. I watched the whole series about 3 times waiting for my friends. This area is free. If id known how much time i would have, id have paid for the museum, and the restrooms therein. When my friends came back i heard that at the tower they had access to restrooms as well as a mandatory bag check before the tower. I have no idea if luggage check can be used by people not climbing tower. There is a cluster of resturants off the south east corner of the grounds, but we did not leave that direction . So, we headed back on the long walk to central station thinking we'd find someplace open where they could get a gelato and i could use the restroom. Most of what's. On that route is residential, and the few establishments were locked up tight on a Sunday afternoon, and it was a miserable walk all the way back to that Centrale station toilet. Bottom line, it should be a great stop for yr family but learn from my mistakes.