Hi
We are are group of 6 who will be leaving Monterosso on the 7th May for Pisa. In Pisa we will be meeting my son who will be joining us from London.

His flight arrives at 11.20 a.m. Is it easy enough for him to take the train to the main station in Pisa and for us to meet him there? Does anyone know how much time we should allow him from the time he lands until he gets to the train station in Pisa?

Later in the day four of us will be catching a train to Bologna and the other three will be catching a train to Rome.

It looks as though I could buy the train tickets to both Bologna and Rome online when they become available. There is a train around 3.00 p.m. to both destinations. My queries around this are:

1. Are we able to leave our bags at the train station.
2. How far is it from the train station to the Leaning Tower. Can we walk or do we need to catch a bus/taxi?
3. Is it easier to just get the tickets for the trains to Bologna and Rome once we are back at the train station in Pisa or are we better to get these onlines when they become available. We don't want to risk not being able to get a train because it is full (would this be likely?)
4. If I was to order tickets online would a 3.00 p.m. train to both destinations allow us enough time to see the sights, have lunch, return to the train station, retrieve our bags etc.

I will be heading off to Rome and my husband and son will be going to Bologna. I won't have seen my son for over a year so would like to spend at least a couple of hours in his company in Pisa. (We are getting together again later in the month in Paris for a week)

Trains from the airport to Pisa take just about ten minutes or less and go 2-3 times an hour i believe - to Pisa Centrale - the main station

where there is a left luggage depot

the reason to book online the train to Bologna is that you could say a little money on those routes - if you can get the fickle trenitalia site to work for you - good luck.

You will reliably IME get on trains without buying far in advance - you can buy the tickets at any train station in the Cinque Terre for example and perhaps still get the Amica fare (about 20% discount) at the station if those remain - do so the day before or earlier however as those type tickets are not sold in limitless numbers

But regular fare - there are so so many trains on the Bologna-Florence-Rome line that i would be shocked you could not get on one. And you can always take regional trains that are slower but which you can always board as there are no reservations possible on those trains.

Forget the travails of trenitalia.com IMO and just buy once in Italy. The savings would be more substantial if your train trips were longer i believe - not worth the hassle IMO on those two routes.

Trains between 5 Terre and Pisa Centrale and Florence are mainly regional trains with no reservations and can always board.

From your description of both trains leaving Pisa at 3PM, I suspect they are the same train: both groups will take the same train to Florence and then transfer in Florence to the trains to either Bologna or Rome.

I have walked from the train station to the tower--15-30 minutes depending on your pace. Taxis or a local bus are also options.

Since you will be in Italy some days before your day of travel, I'd wait until you arrive and then purchase a few days ahead so you can reserve seats near one another. You till might qualify for Amica discounts.

If you plan to actually climb the leaning tower, you should reserve your ticket ahead of time.

You should take the 9:29AM train from Monterosso, it gets to Pisa Centrale at 11:25, no need for reservations, just buy the tickets, validate them by sticking them into the yellow box by the platform access, and hop on. Make a rendez-vous with your son at the waiting room (called Sala d’Attesa) of the station.

The next one leaves Monterosso at 11:17 and gets to Pisa Centrale at 12:45 - if your son’s plane is on time, he’ll beat you to it.

The luggage storage in Pisa Centrale is called Deposito Bagagli.

The walk to the leaning tower and baptistry and cathedral takes maybe 20 minutes. It is a nicer walk from the station if you follow the Corso Italia (veers slightly to the right, becomes Via di Bianchi before the river) to the Ponte di Mezzo bridge, then it becomes a nice pedestrian-only street, Borgo Stretto, name changes to Oberdan, then to Carducci, then to Fedeli and suddenly it veers left and you see the tower in the distance. Awesome, the sucker really leans!

http://maps.google.com will show it all, take a print-out with you.

From Pisa Centrale to Rome you have two routes by train, and it’s your choice.

The slightly faster route goes via Florence, the slightly slower one down the coast via Grosseto.

The ones that go via Florence will require a change of trains - from Pisa to Florence they are mostly slow regionals (no reservation), from Florence they are the fast trains where the mandatory seat reservation comes with each ticket.

The station in Florence where you make that change is sometimes Santa Maria Novella, sometimes Rifredi, depends on which train you pick.

From past experience I much prefer the coast route, you can stay on the train all the way, and it shows a different landscape. Some of those trains stop in many locations, a few only stop in Livorno, like the ETR 460 in the morning that takes less than 2 1/2 hours.

You’ll see them all at www.ferroviedellostato.it - click on Dettagli/Details on the right when the trains are displayed, then click on the actual train numbers to see all stops.

If you see the letter R inside two brackets on the far right, then reservation is mandatory. Without the brackets it is optional (might be a good idea for a group so you sit together), no R means no reservation is possible.


Note that the website only displays fares within the next 60 days, and sometimes it works that way for timetables and dates, too. If you can’t get a trip on a date beyond 60 days to display properly, try an earlier dummy date, schedules don’t change except around mid-December (when all of Europe adjusts the yearly schedules).

Trains from Pisa Centrale to Bologna also go via a change of trains in Florence, and again - some go via the Santa Maria Novella station, others via the Rifredi station.

If those of you who go to Rome choose to go via a switch in Florence, and you plan it carefully, you could all sit together on the same train from Pisa to Florence and part ways there. But you have to really study the schedules.

But if 3PM is roughly the time you want to get going, there is a really good train going down the coast to Rome at exactly 3PM, the train 523 Capodimonte, an ICPlus train where reservations are mandatory, has 1st (36 Euros) and 2nd class (27.50 Euros). When it gets inside the 60 days, see if you can get the Amica discount after clicking on the shopping cart symbol, then selecting Amica from the Tariffa selector.

For Bologna you’ll have a train to Florence SMN at 2:54PM (arr. 16:03), the train to Bologna leaves at 16:19 (an AV highspeed train), the combined trip costs EUR28.40 (1st) or 21.80 (2nd), arr. Bologna Centrale at 17:20.

Hope this helps.

Thanks so much DalaiLlama for such a detailed response. I am printing this off to take with us as has the information on trains from Monterosso as well.

I intend to buy the tickets for both Bologna and Rome on the web when they become available. The coastal train trip from Pisa to Rome looks ideal - like that there is no hassle with changing trains.

One more question, how long will the climb up the tower take, given that we can pre order tickets? I am guessing that we will have no more than a couple of hours to see everything once getting to and from the train station, depositing/ retrieving luggage, possible wait for our son to arrive, is taken into account.

We don't want to arrive in Rome too late so the 3.00 p.m. train is probably the latest we would want to leave.

I believe you get an appointed time with your tower reservation, then you can only go up the tower with a group and a guide, and I'm not sure how punctual they are, nor am I sure how long each group takes. If you can get an appointment for, say, 1PM and your son's flight from London is on time, that would work, or something close to that.

You have some leeway - there is an excellent train for Rome again at 5PM exactly, gets into Roma Termini at 8:14PM, still not really late.

Your Bologna crew would again leave six minutes earlier, at 4:54PM, again via Firenze SMN, so you have that up your sleeves.

Dolly is mind-boggling helpful to outline all that excellent info out.

When i climbed the tower not long ago there were about 35-person groups that a guide slower walked up - just a few an hour so be sure to reserve online.

There is actually a train station right by the Tower but it has no left-luggage facilities and no direct trains from the Cinque Terre and you'd have to change at Pisa Centrale to the Lucca sideline and get off at the very first station, right by the Tower (1/4 mile away)

But i foundhat Dolly Llama's suggested walk thru Pisa was quite nice - right thru the old town center.

From Dolly to Polly - thanks for the compliment, glad you enjoyed the walk.

Did you by any chance walk through the Piazza dei Cavalieri? It sort of is on the way back to the station if you look for it - a splendid square that can transport you back by centuries.

Go to Google Images and input Piazza dei Cavalieri Pisa - lots of good pix!

There have been reports about the unmanned station near the Field of Miracles being unsafe. Don't know if it was just Americans who tend to feel unsafe because of what they are used to from home, or if there were actual bad elements hanging around. But the walk is so nice that it would be unwise to wait for one of the few trains that go there.

Polly to Dolly:

I actually do not remember the Place you mention - but did remember the street names on your route and being pleasantly surprised by a Pisa often castigated as nothing by some posters.

I agree the walk is part of the fantastic Pisa experience - along with the Leaning Tower and the Field of Miracles (name?) - just seeing the tower with its lean is worth the trek - whether you go up in it or not IMO.

Note that the Baptistry, a main sight next to the Tower, can agonizingly be closed for a few hours at lunch (as typical in many Italian eccleisiastical buildings.