Book a morning slot for the Leaning Tower, then take the Cathedral, Baptistery and Camposanto on the same square before the tour buses arrive. Spend the afternoon on the Arno: Piazza dei Cavalieri, Santa Maria della Spina and the Roman ships at the Arsenali Medicei. Stay the night, walk the Lungarni at dusk and eat cecina near Borgo Stretto.
Updated · Wimup Editorial
Most visitors give Pisa three hours: the tower, a photograph, the train back to Florence. They miss a university town of about 90,000 with a medieval core along the Arno, a museum of Roman ships, a walkable ring of walls and some of the cheapest good eating in Tuscany.
Begun in 1173 and leaning almost from the start, the cathedral's bell tower was stabilised between 1990 and 2001 and now tilts about four degrees. The climb is a narrow spiral of 251 steps; book a timed slot online, as walk-up tickets sell out by midday.
The Romanesque cathedral that set the Pisan style, striped marble outside and a gilded coffered ceiling inside. Giovanni Pisano's carved pulpit is the masterpiece; stand under it and read the panels clockwise.
The largest baptistery in Italy, Romanesque below and Gothic above, with a pulpit by Nicola Pisano. Its dome carries sound so well that the custodians sing a few notes to show off the echo; climb to the upper gallery for the square framed through the windows.
A marble cloister of tombs and Roman sarcophagi along the north side of the square, and the quietest place on it. Its frescoes burned in a 1944 bombing; the restored Triumph of Death is back on the walls, and the underdrawings hang in the Museo delle Sinopie.
The political heart of medieval Pisa, remade by Vasari for the Knights of St Stephen. The sgraffito-covered Palazzo della Carovana now houses the Scuola Normale; come in the evening, when students fill the steps.
Roman and later ships found in 1998 under the San Rossore rail yard, conserved in the Medici arsenal with their cargoes, ropes and a sailor's leather. It is the best museum in the city and rarely crowded.
A walkway along the 12th-century walls, entered beside the Leaning Tower and running for about three kilometres around the north of the old town. Walk the stretch from Torre di Santa Maria for the only high view of the tower with the cathedral behind it.
A small Gothic oratory covered in pinnacles and statues, built to hold a thorn from Christ's crown and moved stone by stone in 1871 to save it from the river. The outside is the reason to come; see it from the far bank.
Tuscan painting and sculpture from the 12th to the 15th century in a former Benedictine convent on the Arno, with Masaccio's Saint Paul and Simone Martini's polyptych. Few visitors make it here, so the rooms are often empty.
Keith Haring's 1989 mural on the back wall of the Sant'Antonio Abate convent, thirty figures in a chain about peace. It is one of his last public works and two minutes' walk from the station, so see it on arrival.
The original sculpture from the cathedral square, with a terrace facing the tower.
The Medici and Savoy residence on the river, with tapestries and period rooms.
The Knights of St Stephen's church, hung with Turkish banners taken at sea.
A striped façade so close to the cathedral's that locals call it the old duomo.
The Borgo Stretto pastry shop, open since 1898, for cakes and torta coi bischeri.
Arcaded shopping street and the Piazza delle Vettovaglie market behind it.
A vast Carthusian monastery that also holds the university's natural history museum.
The old Pisan new year, marked in the cathedral with a historic procession.
Thousands of candles outline the palaces of the Lungarni for one night.
A rowing race between the city's four districts, upstream on the Arno.
North bank against south in a costumed push-of-war on the Ponte di Mezzo.
The month of festivals that frames the three big June dates.
Pisa, Venice, Genoa and Amalfi race galleys, hosted in turn.
The independent publishers' fair, with talks and readings.
Tastings and cooking demonstrations from the province, in the city centre.
Tuscany's main airport, at the edge of the city. The Pisa Mover shuttle reaches Pisa Centrale in about five minutes for €6.50.
The main station, south of the river. Regional trains reach Lucca in about half an hour and Florence in under an hour.
Autolinee Toscane runs the urban lines, including the route from the station to Piazza dei Miracoli, and buses to the coast.
The station to the Leaning Tower is about 25 minutes on foot through Corso Italia and Borgo Stretto, past most of the sights.
Tuscan bread and tomato soup with basil and oil.
Chestnut-flour cake with rosemary and pine nuts, an autumn sweet.
Thin chickpea-flour flatbread from a wood oven, eaten hot.
Cecina inside a focaccia, the classic Pisan snack.
Rice, chocolate and pine-nut tart with a fluted pastry rim.
Salt cod stewed with tomato, garlic and leeks.
Bread and vegetable soup with cabbage and beans.
Tripe slow-cooked in tomato with parmesan.
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