Visiting Florence and Pisa

Tiddlypeeps · 18-06-2013 4:28pm #1

Planning to visit Florence in early September, hoping to go away for about 9/10 days. Gonna leave an a Friday so I can get 2 weekends out of it without taking extra time off work.

I'm thinking that might be a bit too much time to spend in the one place tho. Is there enough to do in Florence to fill that much time? It's just myself and my boyfriend going, we aren't really big drinkers or club people so the night life isn't a big feature for us.

We have to fly in and out of Pisa so I was thinking we might leave Florence a few days early and spend the last few days in Pisa. After looking up a few older threads on here about that area I'm starting to rethink this, the threads were from a good few years ago tho. Is Pisa still kind of crappy? I noticed it's close to the sea so was hoping we might be able to get a few days on the beach before we go home, are the beaches around that area any good?

We could rent a car if there is anything within driving distance of either city worth visiting.

Basically just looking for peoples experiences with that area and ideas for what to do.

coylemj · 18-06-2013 6:05pm

Pisa is a university town and would be completely dead in the summer if it wasn't for the tourists visiting to see the Leaning Tower but to my knowledge there is feck all else to do there. I spent a few days in Florence a few years ago and nipped down on the train to see Pisa, did it in an afternoon. I don't think it's worth staying there for any length of time.

If you're staying in Florence and hiring a car I'd recommend that you work out where you're going to park the car at night before deciding to base yourself there.

You might find Florence boring after you've done the main sights, it's jammed all summer long with art students from all over the world, you will eventually find them irritating and noisy. Think about getting a train up to Milan and spending a couple of nights there. From Milan you can do a day trip by train to the town of Como and do a boat trip on Lake Como. Northern Italy has a great train service, don't plan based on needing a car to get around, I've been to Italy lots of times and never hired a car.

ECO_Mental · 18-06-2013 7:15pm

I was just in Florence a couple of weeks ago on a work Junket, and I would say 2 days to 3 days max and you'll see it all. Its small enough to walk around. I didn't manage to get to the see the Uffizi gallery because it was closed on Monday (need to book a least a week in advance to get it I am sure) the only day I had a bit of time free but I would imagine you could spend one whole day in there? Lovely place though, expensive as well €7 a bottle of beer. Recommend climbing the dome in the cathedral awesome views from the top.

I was there end of May and the place was jammed with tourists and students as coylem said but the place is worth a visit though

walking · 18-06-2013 7:39pm

Florence is my favorite in Italy and worth at least staying a week!

For me it's best when not planning much (don't like church-hopping or so) and just stroll around the nice streets and bridges and enjoy climate and the evening life. It gets very lively in the evening and hot in the summe ;-)

I like the San Lorenzo Area to stay as you are in the middle of the life. Here is an area overview to get to know the different quaters.
I personally also like virtualtourist to find things I like or looked up tips from likeminded people.
If you have decided on the area, CrispyHotels is a good site to find the best hotel deal working well in all cities in Italy.

Well and don't drive around too much as Florence is worth stying a while...!

Kittywake · 18-06-2013 7:54pm

Highly recommend getting a train from Florence to Lucca and spending two or three nights there. It is just 30 mins from Pisa. Lucca is a gorgeous walled city with a really nice vibe. It has a real 'lived in' feeling with plenty of Italians visiting there. We did cookery lessons with Chef Paulo Monti which was great fun, and delicious- you can google him for info. Puccini was from Lucca so there may be concerts on while ye are there- we went to one and really enjoyed it.
After Lucca we got a train to Monterosso, a town in the area known as Cinque Terre, about an hour north of Pisa. It is beautiful there. It is on spectacular coastline and you can walk between the five towns along a coastal walk. Do a google search on Cinque Terre for more info. There is a beach at Monterosso. If you go to Cinque Terre you will not need a car as cars are not permitted into the towns. Trains are fine here.
Florence is gorgeous and you will love it- I've been twice- but you can def see everything in a few days. It's def worth seeing a few more places while in Tuscany.
Pisa is not a nice place to stay- spend an hour at the tower of Pisa and keep going to the next destination!

Marcusm · 18-06-2013 8:09pm

definitely hire a car if you are confident enough to do so. Florence is one of my favourite cities on earth but PIsa is worth a few hours diversion and little more. Lucca is nice but Sienna and (esp) San Gimignano are must sees and can be combined in a single day trip from Florence by car. San Gimi is a world heritage site and is a fortified mountain city which has more bell towers than you can count.

If you're interested in shopping, Leccio is a town which contains an uber luxury version of Kildare village with all the big Italian designer names. Personally, I like the nice ultra modern cafe there. There is an open top bus tour of Florence (like many cities). It's particularly useful to get a better idea not of the sights in the city (such as duomo, ponte vecchio, palazzo vecchio etc) but to see places like the Belvedere on the hills overlooking Florence but also to see outlying villages and the palces where British aristos on their grand tours of Tuscany built their palaces and created some of the landscape (cypress trees were their idea, apparently).

ardmacha · 18-06-2013 8:47pm

Highly recommend getting a train from Florence to Lucca and spending two or three nights there.

+1. Also Prato and Pistoia on the line between Florence and Lucca are worth a short visit on a day trip.

Siena deserves more than a day trip, another possibility is to move there for a few nights.

best to stay in the centre of these places to walk to restaurants etc, this is less than ideal for a car. The car is best combined with smaller places, in my opinion.

Tiddlypeeps · 19-06-2013 10:34am

Thanks for all the great advice everyone. @walking those sites are really helpful, thanks

I think staying in Pisa is definitely off the agenda now.

Lucca sounds fantastic, I think I will add a 2/3 night stay there to the plan. I'll probably avoid renting a car since public transport sounds good enough, if we get bored we can always change our minds when were over there.

I would love to visit some of the more northern cities like Milan, but spending that much time on a train doesn't appeal to me at all especially because I'm really bad at packing light and I find traveling with all my luggage in toe insanely stressful.

Fratton Fred · 19-06-2013 1:24pm

I stayed a night in a hostel in Pisa about ten years ago.

It's a different town at night. I found it quiet but certainly not dead.

boombang · 19-06-2013 1:47pm

Sienna is really worth seeing.

Re car vs train. The Italian trains are very cheap and easy to use. They're regular and serve many of the places you'd want to visit quite well. Driving in Italy isn't that easy, especially as there can be tricky restrictions in the old centres of many towns.

I hear you on the bags reason for taking the car. But maybe stay in two places and use the train to day trip to others? AutoEurope.com is good for cheap car though.

The hills on the southside of Florence have some lovely gardens on them and offer some relief from the city.

Einhard · 20-06-2013 5:01am

Don't spend time in Pisa. Apart from the tower and the cathedral, there's not a huge amount there. I'd recommend staying in Siena for a couple of days. Really nice, compact city, and some great day-trip destinations nearby.

Balmed Out · 20-06-2013 9:29am

Dont want to hijack the thread but just wandering Im arriving in florence on a friday for a wedding on a saturday and flying home on the monday at 3 from pisa. I would like to see the leaning tower and had planned on leaving Florence on the sunday evening and heading to pisa.
Is that advisable or is the tower something that can be done on the way to the pisa airport from florence on the monday morning?

Kittywake · 20-06-2013 9:40am

Balmed Out wrote: »

Dont want to hijack the thread but just wandering Im arriving in florence on a friday for a wedding on a saturday and flying home on the monday at 3 from pisa. I would like to see the leaning tower and had planned on leaving Florence on the sunday evening and heading to pisa.
Is that advisable or is the tower something that can be done on the way to the pisa airport from florence on the monday morning?

What I have done before is on the way to Pisa Airport from Florence, leave my luggage at the left luggage in Pisa Train station, walked up to see the tower for an hour, then back to station and onto airport, which is only ten mins away. As your flight is at 3pm you have plenty of time to do this if you get an early train from Florence. The walk from the station to the tower is approximately 20 mins, maybe less.

Bodhran · 24-06-2013 11:53pm

Einhard wrote: »

Don't spend time in Pisa. Apart from the tower and the cathedral, there's not a huge amount there. I'd recommend staying in Siena for a couple of days. Really nice, compact city, and some great day-trip destinations nearby.

Well isn't that the very reason why people visit Pisa - to see the tower and cathedral?

coylemj · 25-06-2013 12:41pm

Bodhran wrote: »

Well isn't that the very reason why people visit Pisa - to see the tower and cathedral?

Yes but you can do them in a couple of hours, the point being made is that the town isn't worth staying in because there's sod all else to do. The poster you were replying to was replying to the OP who was thinking of spending 'a few days' in Pisa.

Kittiwake's advice above is the best for poster Balmed Out as he/she is flying home from Pisa after a wedding in Florence.

xalot · 25-06-2013 1:09pm

As others have said dont spend more than a day in Pisa, it's tiny. I think 3 or 4 days in Florence is loads. I would definitely recommend a couple of nights in Siena and San Gimignano they are such beautiful towns. I way prefer them to the bigger cities.San Gimignano once all the tourists leave at 5pm is particularly special.

If I were you I'd rent a car and stop at some of the smaller towns in Tuscany, you'll have an amazing time!

Tiddlypeeps · 29-06-2013 9:41pm

Ok I've officially booked the flights so the trip is officially a go

The trip is booked for early September for 9 nights. I'm gonna book hotels soon I just wanna run the plan by people just to make sure there is nothing silly I've overlooked. We'll be arriving in Pisa at about 4pm, were gonna find somewhere to abandon our luggage at the train station and go see the tower (maybe the cathedral too if we have time/are in the mood). We plan to spend 5 nights in Florence, then travel to Siena by train and stay there for 2 nights, then travel to Lucca and stay 2 nights there (not sure how to get from Siena to Lucca, but worse case scenario we've to go back through Florence by train). We fly out from Pisa at 10am on the last day which is a Saturday, will the trains start early enough for us to get back to the airport in Pisa at a reasonable time or should we just spend the last night in Pisa?

Columbia · 29-06-2013 9:48pm

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

Ok I've officially booked the flights so the trip is officially a go

The trip is booked for early September for 9 nights. I'm gonna book hotels soon I just wanna run the plan by people just to make sure there is nothing silly I've overlooked. We'll be arriving in Pisa at about 4pm, were gonna find somewhere to abandon our luggage at the train station and go see the tower (maybe the cathedral too if we have time/are in the mood). We plan to spend 5 nights in Florence, then travel to Siena by train and stay there for 2 nights, then travel to Lucca and stay 2 nights there (not sure how to get from Siena to Lucca, but worse case scenario we've to go back through Florence by train). We fly out from Pisa at 10am on the last day which is a Saturday, will the trains start early enough for us to get back to the airport in Pisa at a reasonable time or should we just spend the last night in Pisa?

I'd say spend the last night in Pisa. Go see the tower after dark, there'll be fewer people around and there's plenty grass space to sit down a drink a couple of beers/eat a pizza. Pisa's not a great city, but it would be a shame to miss seeing the tower when you're so close.

ardmacha · 29-06-2013 10:19pm

I'd suggest going to Lucca from Pisa, then Florence, the Siena for a more direct sequence.

Tiddlypeeps · 29-06-2013 10:59pm

Columbia wrote: »

I'd say spend the last night in Pisa. Go see the tower after dark, there'll be fewer people around and there's plenty grass space to sit down a drink a couple of beers/eat a pizza. Pisa's not a great city, but it would be a shame to miss seeing the tower when you're so close.

Seeing the tower isn't an issue because we can see it the day we arrive. The only reason I would spend the last night in Pisa is if it would be tight getting back to Pisa from Lucca for our flight at 10am.

ardmacha wrote: »

I'd suggest going to Lucca from Pisa, then Florence, the Siena for a more direct sequence.

We want to spend the Saturday and Sunday in Florence and it'd be nice to have a day or so to get to know the place before the weekend so we have an idea of what to do with the weekend.

I'm also paranoid about missing my flight, especially when we are relying on public transport in a country where English isn't the native language. I was at a conference in Cologne last year and I missed my flight back because I accidentally got on the slow train to Frankfurt instead of the quicker direct one. It happens too easily I'd be more comfortable spending the last day close to the airport incase something happens because we can always get a taxi as a last resort.

Looking up the Trenitalia website it looks like the earliest train out of Lucca to Pisa is at about 8am, so I guess it would be best to spend the last night in Pisa. Otherwise we'll get to the airport just in time to see our plane fly off. It's probably for the better anyway as I'll be less anxious about missing the flight, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the last night in Lucca anyway worrying about getting back on time.

I'll cut the stay in Florence down to 4 nights, it should probably be plenty anyway. I was hoping to take it super easy, see the sights at a super slow pace, have a picnic in the hills, there is an opera on the Saturday I want to go see and go shopping and stuff. 4 days seems like it might be a bit cramped. I could cut out either Siena or Lucca, that way I can still spend 5 days in Florence and then I can spend 3 days in one of the other two places. Not sure what to do.

I can always go back and visit Tuscany another time to see the other places I missed, from the sounds of it I'll probably want too. I just don't wanna run around ticking places off a list just to say I did, I like to relax and just soak up the culture and the architecture. I'd love to see it all but I don't want to be rushing while doing it.

ardmacha · 29-06-2013 11:46pm

Tiddlypeeps wrote:

Looking up the Trenitalia website it looks like the earliest train out of Lucca to Pisa is at about 8am

I can see why you would want to stay in Pisa, I would myself. However, there are 3 or 4 trains from Lucca by 8am, they take half an hour.
Seeing the tower on the last day would allow you take the direct bus to Florence from Pisa airport on arrival. Then arrive in the day before you leave, drop the bags at the hotel in Pisa and do the Tower.

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

I just don't wanna run around ticking places off a list just to say I did, I like to relax and just soak up the culture and the architecture. I'd love to see it all but I don't want to be rushing while doing it.

A sensible approach. Planes fly to Pisa every day, no need to rush around madly.
3 days in Siena would be great, with a day trip to San Gimignano.

Malari · 29-08-2013 10:56am

Sorry if this thread is too old, but it covered a lot of what I was interested in!

I was wondering specifically about trains in Northern Italy. We'll be going from around Savona to Florence and then back towards Nice a week or so later. Is it worth trying to book in advance? I'd prefer not to, and just wing it if the trains are regularl and cheap enough. We might get out in Pisa for a few hours, etc.

I do already have hotels booked though, so I need to know I can get to my destinations

Can anyone recommend a website for rough prices and timetables?

Marcusm · 29-08-2013 11:02am

Malari wrote: »

Sorry if this thread is too old, but it covered a lot of what I was interested in!

I was wondering specifically about trains in Northern Italy. We'll be going from around Savona to Florence and then back towards Nice a week or so later. Is it worth trying to book in advance? I'd prefer not to, and just wing it if the trains are regularl and cheap enough. We might get out in Pisa for a few hours, etc.

I do already have hotels booked though, so I need to know I can get to my destinations

Can anyone recommend a website for rough prices and timetables?

For timetables across nearly all European networks, it'll take a long time before anyone beats the Germans.

bahn.com

Malari · 29-08-2013 11:06am

Marcusm wrote: »

For timetables across nearly all European networks, it'll take a long time before anyone beats the Germans.

bahn.com

Oh my, that is detailed!

Tiddlypeeps · 29-08-2013 11:18am

Marcusm wrote: »

For timetables across nearly all European networks, it'll take a long time before anyone beats the Germans.

bahn.com

Awesome! I'm leaving next week and I was pretty worried about not being able to figure out the train times when I get there. The italian site has no english option and is pretty tough to figure out.
Thanks!

Malari · 29-08-2013 11:41am

I'd be interested to hear how you get on with the trains Tiddlypeeps. I'll be going late September

nompere · 29-08-2013 12:24pm

The official trenitalia website http://www.trenitalia.com/ works in English or Italian. Just click on the Union flag in the top right corner.

ardmacha · 29-08-2013 3:09pm

Awesome! I'm leaving next week and I was pretty worried about not being able to figure out the train times when I get there. The italian site has no english option and is pretty tough to figure out

Not only the website, but the touchscreen ticket machines are in 5 languages. It couldn't be easier, just remember to punch your ticket going on the platform, although you may pick a particular train tickets do not have dates (seat reservations do) so the ticket doesn't have a date until you punch it. For short journeys from Pisa to Lucca/Florence go on the Regionale trains, inexpensive, run every 30 mins and no seat reservation required.

coylemj · 29-08-2013 3:27pm

Trains in Italy are a breeze, there's almost always a big timetable display in each station, usually seperate 'Arrivi' and 'Partenze' for arrivals and departures.

If you're buying a return ticket at a ticket desk, it's important to bear in mind that 'return' translated into Italian does not mean outward and return, it only means the return leg so you need to ask for 'andata e ritorno', literally 'go and back'.

ardmacha · 29-08-2013 5:30pm

Trains in Italy are a breeze, there's almost always a big timetable display in each station, usually seperate 'Arrivi' and 'Partenze' for arrivals and departures.

Most continental countries have a more or less similar format for such timetables, arrivals on a white background and departures on a yellow background. You can't go far wrong, except perhaps if travelling on a Sunday.

http://customwalks.com/italys-train-system-made-easy/

The only things people usually do wrong are
- forget to punch their ticket
- travel on an expensive train with only a cheap ticket and no reservation
- or like some comedy shows, you could stay on the train looking for Florence although you were in Firenze.

Visiting Florence and Pisa

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