A Stop in Pisa: Is It Worth It?

When you think of Italy, what do you think of? Probably the Colosseum, maybe vineyards, definitely vespas driving along the coasts, and more likely than not the Leaning Tower of Pisa. As I have said before, when planning my trip there were a few nonnegotiable. I absolutely was going to go to Rome to go to the Colosseum and visit the Vatican, take a gondola through the canals of Venice, and go to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I didn’t even need to spend that much time in Pisa. I just wanted to see the tower. When I took Florence out of the trip itinerary, I thought it was perfect that Pisa was pretty much on the way from Cinque Terre to Rome, so I planned the stop in Pisa. Now this was a stop I have mixed feelings about. I can’t decide how I felt about it to be honest. Was it worth it or I should have done a stop somewhere else in Tuscany?

Before officially deciding on Pisa, there were a few things I needed to iron out first to make sure it would work. One of those being sure there was somewhere to store my luggage at the train station, because there was no way I was lugging that big suitcase of mine around Pisa. The next thing was making sure that the tower was actually in walking distance from the train station (spoiler alert it is.) The last was making sure that it wouldn’t cost me an arm and a leg to book two trains, one to and one from Pisa. It looked all good so I booked the trains with about 5 hours to explore Pisa, which would be plenty of time to see my tower. The only downside to. all of this is that taking one of the nice fast trains from Pisa to Rome would be around 70 euros so I had to book the regional train that was over 4 hours for half the price. We survived so it was fine! You do what you have to do as a budget traveler. Just wait until you here about my hostel in Rome.

We arrived in Pisa around 10:30 am. It took us quite a bit of time to figure out the luggage storage situation though. Most train stations will have a room in the station with lockers that you can rent, but we could not find that in Pisa. Instead I came across a small sign that said something about luggage storage with a QR code. It turns out that the luggage storage in Pisa is just some stores in the town that will hold on to your luggage for you. It didn’t seem quite as secure, but I locked my suitcase anyway, so really what is the worst that could happen? So we booked the first one site that showed up on the website. Then we plugged in the coordinates to google maps, which definitely did not bring us to the place so we had to use the old fashion way of actually looking at the numbers of the buildings to find the right place. We eventually found it and were set to go.

It was about a mile walk from there to the tower and cathedral. Pisa was actually kind of pretty. The buildings were very colorful and there was definitely a feeling of being in Tuscany. I didn’t get to spend any time in Tuscany other than this stop, but there was that feeling in city that I imagined Tuscany would have. You know that feeling of dryness and sunshine with the dark green rolling hills, kind of similar to where I was WWOOFing in Emilia-Romagna.

It was about 11:30 am by the time we actually made it to the tower. I had Sam take my picture (after some protests about me not taking a cringy picture which of course I did) and then we separated for the rest of the time. She had already seen the tower and had no interest taking part in this tourist hotspot once again. Which at the end of the day, I could not blame her for.

I went to the ticket office to see if there were any more tickets available for the time we were there to go up into the tower. I managed to get the last one for 1:30pm, so I got the ticket and contemplated what I would do for the next 2 hours then. I started by going into the Cathedral in the Piazza del Duomo right next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was really pretty. I loved the interiors of the churches in Italy. They are so unique. It is much different that the gothic style churches I have seen in Belgium and Germany and the small old Mediterranean brown toned churches of Mallorca. The only church that had the gothic feel was the Duomo in Milan, but other than that the Italian churches were much more colorful with their Romanesque, Baroque, and Renaissance styles.

At this point, I liked the churches in Cinque Terre and the cathedral in Pisa the best. I loved the stripes and the different colors used to paint the walls. This is where I hit my breaking point with tourists though. I had tried to put my feelings aside because obviously I am a tourist and I don’t want to be that tourist that thinks they are better than tourists, but when it comes to churches this is a matter beyond this. I grew up Catholic, and while I am not a perfect Catholic now, as there is a lot I disagree with, I still respect the Catholic church. It also plays a role in my travels. I always find peace in visiting the beautiful old churches of Europe and Latin America where you can witness how connected the world really is. Now I was to preface my complaints by saying I am guilty of taking lots of pictures. I had definitely taken pictures and videos of the inside of cathedrals, but I believe it needs to be done right with reverence. I don’t think there is anything wrong with doing this as it is to admire the beauty of the church. That is why Catholic churches look the way they do. We use art as a form a worship and inspire devotion. What disappointed me was the tourists who didn’t follow the dress code, ignored the visitor rules, or would get their pictures taken in from of the altars like it was a tourist attraction. While the last isn’t forbidden as pictures are taken at the altar for most sacraments, I feel like it can come across as disrespectful when you are treating the church as a tourist attraction rather than a place of worship.

So now why did it frustrate me so much? This question I spent a lot of time reflecting on. For one I felt like it took the peace out of the church, because it felt like a tourist attraction rather than a church. Another reason is that I feel that when you visiting a foreign country you need to learn a bit about the culture. Religion plays a huge role in culture anywhere in the world. When I visited Thailand 6 years ago on a school trip we had to learn how to be respectful when visiting the Buddhist temples. This included what we should wear and the rules for taking pictures. While these temples seem like just these exotic and cool places to a white person from Minnesota, they do have meaning to the locals, which is why we had to follow certain guidelines. It is not my place as a foreigner to disrespect the intent of these places just because they don’t hold meaning to me. I feel that the same respect should be given to churches in Europe. Even though they are very touristy and maybe don’t hold significance to you, they do to somebody, so it is your job as a visitor to respect that. I’d be really interested to hear others thoughts on this topic.

After the cathedral I walked around the surrounding area for a bit. I tried to track down a fountain to fill up my water, which is when an older guy from Africa struck up a conversation with me. I feel bad I don’t remember the exact country, but I promise Africa is relevant in a second. He asked where I was from and I answered, but then it started to get weird. He offered me a bracelet and the number one thing they tell you when traveling is to never take anything from a stranger so I declined many times and walked back to the piazza. Then another guy who I would also guess was from Africa asked me where I was from too and I didn’t want to be rude so I answered once but then he said some weird things about dark and white chocolate so I walked away. The rest of the day when someone asked me where I was from I ignored it because I realized it wasn’t people just being friendly. Something was going on. I am not sure what it was but I honestly didn’t want to find out. Now I suddenly was uncomfortable walking around Pisa by myself. In other parts of Italy there had been people trying to sell things to tourists, but I didn’t feel like they were nearly as bad. There were so many of these people in Pisa and they were definitely in your face a bit more. Most of the times I could just ignore them in the other cities and they wouldn’t bother me, but not here in Pisa. This definitely affected how I viewed the city, because now I was worried about someone taking advantage of me or not leaving me alone if I wanted them to.

I was happy though that I found some peace after buying a focaccia and lemon soda from a food truck and sitting down on a bench. I still had a bit of time before I would need to head back to the piazza to put my purse in a locker and get in line so I found a gift shop to get my usual postcard. I also was in desperate need of a pen because I brought two with me on this trip and I had run out of ink in both of them, so I was pretty far behind in my journaling. So yeah I spent 6 euros on a pen from a souvenir store, but hey now I have a fancy pen from Pisa. (Update: it ran out of ink while journaling about my last day in Rome.)

I got in line about 15 minutes before my time slot. At least I thought it was the line, but there was a family behind me that was definitely creepying up on my spot. Did they know I was in line too? Well they ended up getting a head of me because a worker said something that I didn’t quite hear and suddenly I was like 4 more spot behind where I was before because he was directing the next group forward. And even in this line I definitely go cut in front of at least once, because soon I was the end of the line. It for sure happened when these girls from behind me went, “Excuse me.” They were from somewhere else in Europe, but I couldn’t tell where. They went to the spot right in front of me as I was waiting for my chance to go in and I was finally near the front. Well when the man joined them they looked behind at me and showed me there ticket and were like “1:30?” Yes I was in line for the 1:30, so I showed them my ticket and then they went behind me. Like how did I end up at the end of the line when I was 15 minutes early! I guess it isn’t a big deal, but I just felt like nobody was aware of me because I was on my own. They all were just caught in their own groups. I wish I could say this was the end of my complaints about the tourists, but it was not. I was getting a bit fed up in how disrespectful some of the tourist were. One of these same girls came up behind me as I was taking a picture out one of the windows going up the tower. She said excuse me and basically pushed me to the side instead of waiting patiently. Then I got to the top and the view was amazing. Honestly the entire experience going up was really cool. You could feel the slant when walking up the stairs and then the view at the top of the surrounding landscape of Tuscany was so beautiful.

But again I had an awkward moment when a mom was getting annoyed at me for taking a picture while they were taking a family picture. You must have been able to see me in the corner as I pulled out my camera to take a picture of the scenery. I apologized but got nothing in return. Like seriously, you are expecting to get a picture on top of one of the most touristy spot in Italy without other people in it. So I will end my complaint about tourists here. My complaint isn’t the amount of tourists, because I am obviously also a tourist. It is the entitlement and lack of respect of some tourists that I can’t stand as a fellow traveler.

I did a few laps around the top and then I was on my way down. It was actually kind of hard going down. The tower is made out of marble and if you know anything about marble, then you know it is slippery. Then you throw in the tilt of the tower. I took my time going down for sure. I was so nervous I was going to wipe out and well I did. The most embarrassing part is that it was on the last ten steps. I was almost at the bottom when my legs decided to fail me and the people behind me saw it. They asked me if I was ok too and in that moment I really just wanted to go find a little villa in the middle of the mountains and hide there for the rest of my life. The funniest part is that Sam was making fun of me for how I went down some of the stairs and rocks the day before when we were hiking cause I totally went down them like my mom holding on to things, but this is why I did that! It is in my blood to be clumsy. I knew I was destined to wipe out.

After the embarrassment and the rising frustration with the other tourists I could not get out of that piazza fast enough. I was so done. I didn’t want to leave Pisa like that, so since I had a bit of time before I needed to be back at the train station I took the long way back hoping I could find more of the side of Pisa locals know. I think I didn’t do too bad because suddenly I was hearing more and more Italian around me. Then when I got to the river I came across a Palestine protest by the university students.

Then I crossed the bridge and was on my way back. I decided to stop at Carrefour to get some snacks for on the train because it was going to be a long time before we were in Rome. And who knew what time we would be getting dinner after arriving and getting settled into the hostel. This was my first time in an Italian grocery store, which is weird since I kind of lived there for a month, but on the farm they didn’t really go to grocery stores. They grew a lot of their own stuff and then for everything else they bought locally from other farms. I ended up getting a sparkling water, dried figs, and what I would probably describe as the Italian version of Cheetos, cheesy corn chip stick. Dare I say I liked it better than Cheetos?

Then I picked up my stuff and found Sam at the train station. We still had a bit of time before our train, but I think we both were over Pisa and took refuge in the train station. The weirdest thing then happened while we were waiting in the train station. These men in police uniforms came over to us and asked to see our passports. We both were a little hesitant. I think they had been asking the other people in the room but at the same time had they? They also gave a very vague response when we asked why. “Its just a check.” A check for what though, signori? We let them scan our passports, but held on to them the entire time. I searched around the room to gauge the reactions of the others in the room hoping that if we shouldn’t be giving these guys our passport details that some Italian would intervene. No one did so I just hoped for the best. They checked the IDs of the rest of the people in the room. They were real police officers but the whole thing still felt strange. I had no idea what that was all about until about a week ago when I saw a TikTok about how you are supposed to always have identification on you in Italy and its breaking the law if you don’t. I did some research then. This must be a fairly new rule. You have to have a recognized identification when in Italy, which for Americans is our passport, and the police will do random checks. If you don’t comply or don’t have your passport you can be fined. My guess is it must be some kind of immigration crack down, because I have never experienced this while traveling abroad anywhere. When traveling I never carry my passport with me. I always get so nervous about getting pickpocketed and it getting stolen. It is also just a habit I don’t have because I have lived in Europe. Anyway if you are traveling to Italy make sure to have your passport with you at all times, because I definitely didn’t. I am just lucky this happened at the train station in between stops when I had all my stuff with me, so I had my passport accessible.

That is how I left Pisa: an awkward encounter with the police, annoyance with the tourists, and a strong desire to just leave, which really is just too bad, because the tower itself really was amazing!

So now here is how I would answer the question of if a stop from Cinque Terre to Rome in Pisa is worth it. I don’t regret it. I really wanted to see the tower. I am just sad that this was my impression of Pisa and that of Tuscany as well. If I did it again then I would probably have picked a less touristy town for my Tuscany stop. I think for Pisa you either need to spend awhile there so that you can find the hidden gems and experience the charm of the city or you have to come just for the stop at the tower like I did, but then pair it with another charming town in Tuscany. For example I think I wouldn’t have minded it as much if I did it as a day trip from Florence or if I was jumping around the towns of Tuscany and saw Lucca, Siena, and other places as well. I don’t think it makes a great stop when traveling around the different regions of Italy to get a feel for the country. I still think it is an obvious stop when traveling around Tuscany though.

In the end the experience is what is was. And knowing myself, even if someone warned me about Pisa, I probably wouldn’t have listened, because I was really set on seeing that tower. Now I probably wouldn’t ever go back to Pisa, but at least I can check it off the list and next time I go back to Tuscany I can spend more time in the less touristy places and truly experience Italy!

That is it for my day in Pisa. My last stop of the grand Italian adventure is Rome, so stay tuned for my 3 days in the Eternal City.