Everyone will tell you not to go to Pisa. There's nothing but an underwhelming tilted bell tower packed in with tourists and trinket carts bent on selling yet another leaning-tower key chain (which, as it turns out, you can purchase at any other city or tourist trap throughout all of Italy). While there is some truth to this, and there are far more impressive sights in nearby Florence and the Cinque Terre, do not cross Pisa off your list just yet. No, do not overlook this under-appreciated city nestled between its far more glamorous neighbors. In fact, a brief visit to Pisa might be just what you need.
Pisa is like the training wheels of Italy; it's the perfect city to get oriented to the culture, comfortable with the maps, and most importantly - to recover from jet lag.
If you're anything like us, you'll fly across the pond from the U.S. with too much excitement for your upcoming adventure to get a wink of sleep. (It doesn't help when you're flying first class for the first time!)
You'll touch down at 7 a.m. Pisa time, which will feel like the middle of the night to your eyes. After a quick outfit change and brush up in the bathroom, you'll strap on your money belt, pull out your trusty Rick Steve's travel book, and head outside into the morning light. Since Pisa is a relatively small city, it is quite navigable on foot. If you were arriving during the night you'd probably hail a cab for safety reasons, but walking through the streets in the morning might just be the best way to shake off that it's-the-middle-of-the-night-why-am-I-not-asleep" feeling.
Have you ever arrived in a city at daybreak? If you land in Pisa at 7 a.m. and decide to walk through the streets, you will notice that your rolling suitcase is the loudest sound around. Women will open their green shutters (which you'll soon learn is the color of 99 percent of all shutters in Italy), sweep off their patios, and go back inside to drink their espresso (or so you assume). Cats catch the morning sun on old stone walls and recycling bins sit next to garbage cans on every street corner, because Europeans are organized like that.
