Advantages: Breath taking views, easy to get to and around Disadvantages: Them damn bicycles
...and I went along to Pisa for the day, after spotting a bargain on the Ryanair website which involved us paying 2p per ticket with Ryanair and £20 in Airport Tax. Having never been to before this was a first taste of Italy for me and I was especially looking forward to seeing the Leaning Tower in all its glory
Pisa is located in Tuscany, still surrounded by its 12-century City Walls on the north bank of the river Arno with just over 100,000 inhabitants. ... ...Airport to the centre of Pisa we used the shuttle bus service, which can be found, at the bus station outside the Airport at a cost of 3 Euros for a day return, there are also taxis available if you prefer not to use the bus.
Once you enter the main city centre, as with most European cities there are plenty of opportunities to max out the credit cards upon a wide range of gifts from jewellery, clothes, food and souvenirs. The shopping hours in Pisa ...
kappaslappa 03.10.2005
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Pisa (Italy)
Advantages: It's Italy, so you can expect good weather, nice people and amazing food, plus a well located airport served by budget carriers Disadvantages: There's very little to do there
...GETTING AROUND Pisa is compact enough to explore on foot. If you want to venture further afield, there are plenty of busses although they annoyed the whatever out of me. It’s the routes, you see. While you might want a bus to go like this: ------------> <------------ so you can get off anywhere and just come back the way you’ve come, you’ll find Pisan ones don’t do this. Instead, it’s more of a: |------2--->---1------>--| ... ...cream, inside. For other meals, Pisa has plenty of restaurants. For take away snacks try the university area which also has the advantage of lower, student-aimed prices. Even by-the-slice pizza is amazing in this city. For a sit down meal, try near the tower. Although it’s the most touristy area, it also has the best prices since each restaurant has a lot of competition. There are set menus that offer good value if you like the food on them, ...
zoe_page 07.01.2003
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Pisa (Italy)
Advantages: interesting, tower, cathedral Disadvantages: a bit dull
...an impressive and well-established University, Pisa has young population, heavily influenced by the student population. Of course she is most famous for the sights on the Campo dei Miracoli, the ubiquitous Tower, the Cathedral, the Baptistry and a couple of museums. The tower itself is one of those things which is more impressive at close sight, I found it so anyway. It is going to reopen this year, possibly before the summer, after years and years ... ...rest of the town, well, Pisa is a paradise for collectors of tacky souvenirs. Lots of plastic towers and plastic, plastic everything really! There are other things to see in Pisa, there are some pretty piazzas, and churches. There is a small shopping area and tower or no tower, the city centre is much quieter than Florence (for obvious reasons). There are some great restaurants away from the 'tower zone', and the Pisans are, like most Tuscans, immensely ...
womble 07.02.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Pisa (Italy)
Advantages: Some attractions, that tower Disadvantages: Compared to many Italian cities not that much 2C
Pisa has a leaning tower. You must have heard of it. But is there anything else to see to make a visit to Pisa worthwhile?
The problem with many cities you might visit in Italy is that there is simply too much to do in one day. Often places of interest within a city are a long distance apart necessitating a long walk or fraught taxi journey during which you miss many sites and views.
Pisa however has all its main attractions including the leaning ... ...150 metres. You have to say that the leaning tower itself is an extraordinary site. Whilst it is one the most familiar and enduring images of Italy it is also breathtaking the first time you actually see it.
Within the small area mentioned there are other historical buildings. Unfortunately during our visit at the end of 1999 many of these were inaccessible or were covered by tarpaulins as Italy prepared many of its famous sites for the Millennium ...
polydeuces 23.11.2000
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Pisa (Italy)
Advantages: You can take the famous photo where you appear to be holding up the tower Disadvantages: Random Italians come up to you trying to push dodgy Sony stuff
...what the main attraction at Pisa is. Well, actually I have to mention it to get some points across.. The tower is, of course, breathtaking. White, leaning over so far you convince yourself it's about to topple, perfectly constructed. Unfortunately, at the moment it also has two enormous steel cables holding it up (which sort of destroy the romantic illusion) plus a building site all the way around. They're trying to stabilise it, and stop it falling ... ...along the front of the piazza. To be honest, if all you've heard of Pisa is the tower, it's all you're likely to hear. It's a perfectly nice, sleepy Tuscan town, but apart from the one spot, there is nothing there! An afternoon is all you really need. ...
Alternum 13.10.2000
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Pisa (Italy)
Advantages: Beautiful tuscan city Disadvantages: None
...experience.
You can reach Pisa by air from stanstead with Ryanair www.ryanair.com.
You can also get there from other areas of Italy by Italy's excellent (and cheap) rail network. (Florence is an hour away- six euro!)
There are many good value hotels here but we found a great campsite (25 euro for a family) with swimming pool, restaurant, children's play area and bungalows for hire.
I prefer to keep it short and sweet so please don't say "You ...
zzchris 22.08.2004
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Pisa (Italy)
Advantages: Great location, great transport links, great food, great holiday Disadvantages: could run out of things to do on long holiday as its a small city
Had an amazing time there. Would definately recommend it.
Food was lovely, ate in several restaurants over the 3 nights. Pizza's and Pastas were lovely and the icecream... if i could bottle it and take it home i would!
Airport to hotel transfer was easy, painless and nice and cheap!
Everyone we spoke to spoke English and this was very useful seeing as we spoke no Italian.
We went out of season (in november) and everything was still open. The ... ...on the walk up and down. It wasn't too busy either so much better than in the height of summer!
The airport was easy to use and had no problems there.
Flights were cheap through Ryanair and hassle free again.
Went to Florence for the day by train which was well worth it. Only cost about £3.50 each way for an hour trip. Much better than UK prices.
Was the best long weekend i've had and was the perfect place to go for a few days. ...
pocketsize 12.05.2008
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Pisa (Italy)
Advantages: Easy to get to, good base for a few days Disadvantages: Crowded with Tourists, touts selling cheap watches
...Pisa. We arrived at Pisa airport which was only a mile out of town. I expected to find leaflets packed with info at the airport - but no. So we wandered outside and found the bus stop & I had already found out that is was apparently easy to get a bus into the centre. We tried to buy a ticket from a machine, but it wouldn't give us tickets so we asked the driver of a bus that drew up and he tried to help & had a problem, so he sold us a couple of ... ...There were signs all over Pisa to indicate where different hotels were.
Its quite a small place, most places are within easy reach. The first day we went round Pisa, the Leaning Tower and Duomo etc which were swarming with tourists even in May. I lost count of the number of times we were approached by guys trying to sell watches, it became irritating to some extent. At the end of the first day I did wonder what we would do for 4 days - We went to ...
flyingfox 18.05.2005
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Pisa (Italy)
Advantages: Can't think of any, sorry Disadvantages: A bit dull
...half day quick visit to Pisa from Viareggio where we were staying. We travelled by bus which was nice and easy as it drops you off directly in front of the tower attraction.
What can I say about the tower? Well it does exactly as it says in the brochure, it leans. End of that review!!
There are lots of market type stalls at the leaning tower all selling cheap tourist tat, but good to browse at.
We had lunch at one of the many pizzerias/restaurants ... ...city were open and the place generally was very quiet. I felt Pisa was not as interesting as Florence for a city to visit, but we did visit on probably not the best day and also went at the end of May, which may be a quieter time in general. ...
sue40 28.05.2005
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Pisa (Italy)
...that I do not recommend Pisa since there are too many tourists around, especially Japanese! The thing is that the tower is overrated and, partly due to its uniqueness, herds of tourists flock to Pisa. Anyway, there are quite a few cheap places to stay, since there is a large Student population in town with the University. Alberto Gronchi in Piazza Arcivescovado 1 is in a very good location and has clean modern doubles for £22ish. For food, go to ...
FRADUC 20.08.2000 (02.01.2007)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Pisa (Italy)
NH Hotels, the hotel chain leader in Europe, with more than 300 hotels in 20 countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Enter into our web site and find the best available tariff at all times