Pisa Travel Guide

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is a freestanding campanile on the Piazza dei Miracoli; work began in 1173, but as the soft alluvial ground settled the tower started to tilt, and today its top leans roughly 4 metres from the vertical — the world's most famous 'beautiful mistake'. Eight tiers of white marble colonnades wrap the shaft, elegant yet askew. Climb it for views over the whole square, and stand where legend says Galileo demonstrated his falling-body experiment.

The Piazza dei Miracoli is Pisa's sacred complex of religious architecture, ringed by green lawns and gathering the white-marble Baptistery, Cathedral, Leaning Tower and Camposanto — together called the 'Miracles'. The four buildings echo one another under the Tuscan sun, a pinnacle of medieval craft, inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1987 as the Piazza del Duomo; still sacred amid the crowds.

Pisa Cathedral is a model of Tuscan Romanesque architecture, begun in 1064, famed for its elegant façade of white marble striped with green and black and its bronze doors. Inside, mosaic work, the carved pulpit and the astronomical instrument reward close attention; together with the Leaning Tower and Baptistery on the Piazza dei Miracoli, the four buildings echo one another in light and shadow, a harmonious medieval hymn in stone, inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1987.

The Camposanto Monumentale, or Holy Field, stands on the north side of Piazza dei Miracoli and is one of the square's four main buildings, alongside the Leaning Tower, the cathedral and the baptistery. It is a monumental cemetery built around a cloister, and its central courtyard is said to have been filled with soil brought back from Jerusalem, so it was regarded as sacred ground. The cloister walls are covered with extensive frescoes; despite damage and restoration they remain important material for the study of medieval Pisan painting, and ancient Roman sarcophagi and sculptures are displayed along the arcades. The building is rectangular, with plain brick walls outside and a quiet, solemn cloister within. Visits are usually combined with the other buildings on the square, so check how each is opened and ticketed.

Piazza dei Cavalieri is the second main square of old Pisa, on the north bank of the Arno and a short walk from the better-known Piazza dei Miracoli. It was once the political centre of Pisa and later the seat of the Order of Saint Stephen, from which it takes its name. The square is surrounded by important buildings, most notably the Palazzo della Carovana, remodelled by the architect Giorgio Vasari and now home to the Scuola Normale Superiore, alongside the church of Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri and a building with a clock tower. The square is orderly and quiet, with well-kept paving and façades, and makes a good stop after the Leaning Tower to see another layer of the old town's history.