Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Good central location for Tuscany |
| Disadvantages: |
It's an airport ! |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
Pisa International Airport, or, as Ryanair like to call it, 'Florence airport' likes to call itself 'the Strategic gateway to Tuscany'. If all that weren't confusing enough, its Sunday name is Pisa International Airport - Galileo Galilei. Of course, it doesn't really matter what its called - what matters is whether the flight you want goes there...and I suppose, departs from there.
When we took a trip to Tuscany last year, it rather conveniently did.
Actually, the description of the Gateway to Tuscany isn't a bad one as most people travelling there will have to use Pisa - Florence airport is smaller although I think there are plans to enlarge it. Not that it matters all that much, Florence isn't all that far from Pisa and there are excellent communication links. In fact, the railway station is literally on the doorstep.
The airport is quite well situated for all the major
attractions of Tuscany with Florence being 80km to the east, Siena around 100km south, the resorts on the coast are just a few miles to the west, and Pisa is, well...there.
Around a dozen or so airlines use the airport, although the domestic service seems fairly limited with flights to Rome, Milan and Palermo. International flights are a little busier and the budget airlines are well represented.
It's not a huge airport, and it's a little tired looking, but I've yet to see a terminal building that excited me. However, when you're stepping off that plane into the black tarmac under an azure sky, who gives a toss what the building is like - you just want to grab your luggage and go.
Luckily, that wasn't a problem.
Maybe it was just our good fortune, or good timing, but when we arrived the airport wasn't very busy and, after a very inforamal stroll through customs, we didn't have to wait very long for our bags.
Suitably enluggaged, the next stop was the car rental desk. When I say desk, it was actually located in a portacabin outside the building, but it was a nice sunny day, so doing the paperwork in the sunshine wasn't a hassle and we were soon whisked away to the back-of-beyond to pick up our shiny little car and ready to risk dear life traversing the superstradas.
Ten Days Later...
We dropped the car off (without so much as sniff of a scratch) and, after a maniacal trip to the terminal, entered expecting the usual horrendous queue for the inefficient check-in...we weren't disappointed. Nah, it wasn't too bad. No worse than anywhere else and possibly a lot better.
So, with the luggage deposited into the safe and capable hands of baggage control, we explored the airport and all it had to offer in the way of passenger services.
As I said, it's not a huge airport, so you won't find a massive shopping mall (phew). Having said that, there are around 20 or so different outlets where you can buy that last minute 'thing'. The usual sort of goods are on offer: jewellery, watches, leather goods, sportswear, gifts and books etc, with quite a good choice of regional produce. Fortunately, I didn't particularly need anything as, surprise, surprise, it ain't cheap.
There are a couple of bars and a couple of restaurants - one self-service, one a little more upmarket. We settled for a slice of pizza at the bar...it wasn't very good.
There's not an awful lot more to do to while away the time, but since we checked in something like an hour before the flight, which took off pretty much on time, we didn't really need much more.
In conclusion, Pisa is an average regional airport. I'm not sure I'd put it in the 'international' class, but I suppose it sounds good. Because it's not huge, and indeed, not overly busy (at least when we were there), it didn't have that stress factor that larger airport have and it was very easy to find your way around.
It's conveniently located for travelling anywhere in Tuscany - we drove to our hotel in Empoli after landing and this took around 30 minutes. We stayed in Pisa for the last few days and from our hotel, it took about 15 mins to get to the airport which, incidentally, is well signposted and a dawdle to find.
Also, as was mentioned earlier, the transport links to the major sites of Tuscany are excellent and, let's face it, it doesn't matter how good an airport is if the transport infrastructure doesn't match up.
© proxam2006
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