We planned a day trip to Pisa and Cinque Terre. Visiting Pisa is really just a photo op in front of the leaning tower. There’s not much to do there. The baptistry and the tower are not exactly the most magnificent ones. I really think one can just photoshop himself standing next to the leaning tower and call it a day. JJ would argue it’s not true and he thinks the leaning tower looks like an ivory tower.
I wasn’t too keen on the idea of visiting Pisa because commuting from Florence to Pisa is quite a hassle. It takes around 1 hour and 45 minutes to get there by the regional train, which is worn and slow. There is no option for high speed train. After you get off the train, you either take a horribly cramped bus with pickpockets eyeing you or walk to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. That’s another 25 minutes right there. The walk is about 25 minutes. Taking a bus packed like sardines will also take 25 minutes because you have to wait for the bus for a while. If you come from a place where people line up orderly for a bus or train, you will be shocked how unruly commuters are in Italy. If you walk, you will pass by a dodgy area near the train station. This is a lot of pain for a photo op. Don’t you think?
It’s not just how much time you spend on commute, it’s also how unpleasant the commute is. For self-guided tourists, I don’t think it’s worth it at all. If the commute was as pleasant as how we traveled from Barcelona to Figueres (Dali’s home town in Catalonia region in Spain), I would not whine so much. Catalonia region in Spain is the best. The infrastructure is probably the newest so far among all the places I have visited in Europe.
Even though Pisa is in Tuscany region, the scenery of this train route is not pretty. This is not a nice part of Tuscany. Some areas look rather industrial. That’s all I can tell you.
Here is the baptistry.
See the Duomo in front of the leaning tower.
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