Pisa in 2 days, on foot

This 2-day self-guided walking plan for Pisa covers 18 narrated sights in an easy day-by-day order. Each day is split into a morning and an afternoon loop, and every stop has a two to three minute audio story in the Gingerguide app.

You set the pace: this is a suggested order, not a schedule. Walk it in 2 days, or stretch it out. Reorder freely; Pisa rewards a detour.

Day 1

Morning

1. Leaning Tower of Pisa: The world's most famous unintended architectural accident, a Romanesque marble campanile begun in 1173, tilting 3.97 degrees due to soft subsoil, with 296 steps spiralling to a panoramic summit.
2. Pisa Cathedral (Duomo): A magnificent Romanesque cathedral begun in 1064, where Galileo measured pendulum swing by watching its famous bronze lamp, featuring Giovanni Pisano's remarkable pulpit and a façade of extraordinary decorative richness.
3. Baptistery of Pisa: The largest baptistery in Italy, begun in 1152, housing Nicola Pisano's revolutionary pulpit of 1260, the first great work of Gothic sculpture in Italy, and possessing extraordinary acoustics where a single voice fills the entire dome.
4. Campo dei Miracoli: The 'Field of Miracles', a UNESCO World Heritage ensemble of four great monuments set on a perfect green lawn: the Cathedral, Baptistery, Leaning Tower and Camposanto, together one of the world's supreme architectural achievements.
5. Camposanto Monumentale: A magnificent medieval cemetery begun in 1277, its cloistered galleries once covered in extraordinary 14th-century frescoes, many destroyed by a WWII incendiary bomb, containing Roman sarcophagi and the famous Triumph of Death.

Afternoon

1. Piazza dei Cavalieri: Pisa's medieval political centre and the second most important square in the city, dominated by Giorgio Vasari's magnificent Palazzo della Carovana facade (1562) and the Torre della Muda where Count Ugolino was starved to death, immortalised by Dante.
2. Lungarni Riverside: Pisa's most elegant urban space, the promenades along both banks of the Arno river, lined with Renaissance and Baroque palaces, connecting the Palazzo Blu to the city's ancient bridges.
3. Santa Maria della Spina: A miniature Gothic gem on the Arno embankment, built in the 13th–14th centuries and originally said to house a thorn (spina) from the Crown of Thorns, one of the most exquisitely detailed small churches in Italy.
4. Borgo Stretto: The arcaded medieval shopping street at the heart of Pisa, a covered promenade of round arches, historic cafés, and local shops running from Piazza dei Cavalieri to the Arno, the living pulse of everyday Pisan life.

Day 2

Morning

1. Galileo Galilei & University of Pisa: Pisa is the birthplace of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), the father of modern observational science, and home to the University of Pisa (founded 1343), one of the oldest universities in the world, together making the city a milestone in the history of human knowledge.
2. Certosa di Calci: A vast Carthusian monastery founded in 1366 in a serene Tuscan valley 12km from Pisa, now housing the University of Pisa's Museum of Natural History, combining medieval monastic architecture with one of Italy's finest natural history collections.
3. Basilica of San Piero a Grado: A 10th–11th century Romanesque basilica 5km west of Pisa, built where tradition holds that Saint Peter first stepped ashore in Italy on his journey from Antioch to Rome, its interior frescoes tracing all popes from Peter to the 14th century.
4. Museum of Ancient Ships: In 1998, construction workers near Pisa's San Rossore station unearthed one of the most extraordinary archaeological discoveries in Italy, a fleet of 30 ancient ships perfectly preserved in the riverbed, spanning the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD.
5. Palazzo Blu: A 14th-century Gothic palace on the Arno waterfront whose distinctive cobalt-blue exterior has become one of Pisa's most recognisable landmarks, now the city's premier cultural centre hosting major international art exhibitions.

Afternoon

1. Piazza delle Vettovaglie: Pisa's oldest and most authentic market square, surrounded by medieval loggias, it hosts a vibrant daily morning food market where Pisans shop for fresh produce, fish, and cheese, and fills with bar terraces for the evening aperitivo.
2. Orto Botanico di Pisa: Founded in 1543 by the botanist Luca Ghini under Cosimo I de' Medici, the Orto Botanico di Pisa is the oldest university botanical garden in the world, a 2.4-hectare haven of scientific history and living plant collections in the heart of the city.
3. Pisa's Maritime Republic: At its 11th–12th century peak, Pisa was one of Italy's four great Maritime Republics, dominating western Mediterranean trade from Sardinia to the Levant, until the catastrophic naval defeat at Meloria in 1284 against Genoa ended its maritime empire forever.
4. Bolgheri & the Etruscan Coast: The Etruscan Coast south of Livorno is home to Bolgheri, birthplace of Sassicaia and the Super Tuscan revolution, where Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta produced Italy's most famous modern wine from a Bordeaux-style blend whose 1968 vintage was first released commercially in 1971.

Full Pisa guide and all stops →