I have heard that late afternoon/early evening is a good time of the day to visit the tower. We arrive at Pisa airport at 3.30 in the afternoon and wondering if it makes sense to take the train to Pisa Centrale station, leave our luggage there and visit the tower before catching the train to Lucca where we will be staying? Not sure how much time we would need or how late we can get the train to lucca. We don't have much time in the area so thought maybe we should try to do the tower when we first arrive rather than making it a specific trip. Thoughts? Thanks.

Note; posted this previously but forgot to tag it as Italy

I wouldn't trek back to the airport to retrieve luggage. Store your luggage at Pisa Centrale. The closest train station to the tower is actually Pisa S Rossore, but it has no facilities so you will have to go back to Centrale (there is a shuttle bus between the tower and Centrale) and depart for Lucca from there. The last train from Pisa departs at 9:50 (3.40€). Validate your ticket before boarding.

There is also a bus from the airport to Lucca (service is more limited on Sunday).

http://www.pisa-airport.com/download...2014_lucca.pdf

Thanks. We are staying close to the train station in lucca so wanted to take the train not the bus. Thoughts on whether this even makes sense or if we'd be too rushed?

The train station is not that far (the walled part of Lucca is tiny), but the bus does drop on the west side of the wall (train station is south). Last time I took a bus to Lucca (from Florence, not the airport), I was dropped just inside the wall (west side).

The airport is only 5 minutes or so from Pisa Centrale (used to be train, but they have been putting in some type of people mover).

http://www.pisa-airport.com/index.ph...en&id_sect=438

I doubt there will be much of a line to check your bags at Centrale, but do allow time to retrieve (check closing times). They usually ask for ID when checking bags so don't be surprised if they ask for a passport.

You could walk from Centrale to the tower (many people do) if you wanted to see a bit of Pisa.

FWIW - Lucca to S. Rossore by train is only 25 minutes if you decide to visit another day.

Trenitalia has annoyingly removed the info about stations from their website except for the very large stations. Here's the info about luggage storage in Florence. The prices are the same at all stations, but hours vary between stations. I would expect Pisa has shorter hours (I seem to recall that when they used to list the info).

http://www.grandistazioni.it/cms/v/i...003f16f90aRCRD

They still have information about the smaller stations under the region, but it's missing the column about baggage deposit. However, I think the stations on the Grandi Stazioni page are the only ones that have baggage deposits, anyway.

To see information about the stations, choose the region on this page:

http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom/Treni-Regionali

Then, on the right-hand side, under "Servizi nella Regione", there should be the link "servizi in stazione".

I don't think these pages are available in English. You can paste the URL into translate.google.com .

>>>They still have information about the smaller stations under the region, but it's missing the column about baggage deposit.<<<

It's missing quite a few columns and now is just basically hours and whether it has a ticket window/machine, no other info under servizi. Trenitalia used to have a lot more regional station info than it does now (never was in English though).

>>>However, I think the stations on the Grandi Stazioni page are the only ones that have baggage deposits, anyway.<<<

There are several smaller stations that aren't on the Grandi Stazioni page (Pisa Centrale is one) that have luggage storage. They are listed on the Centostazioni, but still don't show as much detail as they did a few years ago. Centostazioni does show some layouts and amenities, but doesn't even show that baggage storage exists for Pisa when it does.

http://www.centostazioni.it/cms/v/in...003f16f90aRCRD