Is Pisa Worth Visiting? My Honest Thoughts

Last updated on 24 April 2025

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Our stop at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy, was fleeting. We were enjoying our Contiki, coaching our way around Italy by this stage, and while we didn’t stay in Pisa, it was a lunch stop on the way to Florence after we’d been in Venice for two nights. We only had a few hours there, so is Pisa worth visiting? Was it worth us stopping?

The coach park was, as in a lot of places we visited in Europe, a decent walk from the heart of the town and the tower itself, so we all bundled out and headed on a bit of a walk. We went straight to see the Tower of Pisa, sitting alongside the Pisa Cathedral and the Pisa Baptistry in the Piazza dei Miracoli – the square where the three buildings sit.

Brief history of the Leaning Tower of Pisa

It wasn’t meant to lean, which you probably knew, of course it wasn’t. But the building of the tower, by architect Bonanno Pisano, started in 1173, a date that I, as a New Zealander with a very new history, can barely comprehend, and it took nearly 200 years to complete.

There were a lot of delays over the years – things like war, money issues, and general thinking to figure out how to stop it falling over – but five years into the project, it began to tilt on the unstable ground. There was then a pause on construction, which was a good thing because they needed to figure out what to do about the tilt and also let the ground settle a bit.

And then 100 years later, another man, Giovanni di Simone, picked the project back up, and then the following decades, various people tried their hand at it, with varying success. What I found fascinating was that until 1990, the tilt of the tower continued to increase from 1 to 1.2mm every single year. 😱 You can learn more about it here.

Legend also says that Galileo used to drop objects from the top of it to study gravity … but I don’t know how true that is. There are also other buildings around Pisa with a leaning issue, it’s not just the tower. Something to do with the land that they built on.

First impressions of Pisa

I’ll be the first to admit that a lot of the places we visited in Italy (and other countries, too), I knew no more than the basics. And many places surprised me when we arrived, mostly due to their location and their proximity to other buildings. When you see things in images mostly (and sometimes movies), you don’t get the same scale or feel as when you’re standing there in real life.

Visiting the Trevi Fountain in Rome was like that, too. I didn’t realise how close all the other buildings were around it, and how small the area was in front of the fountain until we were there.

The Tower of Pisa was like this. Yes, I knew that there were other buildings in the square – the Cathedral and Baptistry – but I think so many photos of people are taken at an angle that it’s trickier to tell what the surrounding town is like, in relation to the tower.

So my first impression was of ‘huh, that’s interesting’ before really being able to look at the buildings and appreciate them. Second impression was also ‘look at all the people’, because we were there in the height of summer, and so was everyone else. So that was to be expected.

We didn’t climb up the tower (even if we had time I wouldn’t have), but we did take some photos and then find some food in the main town of Pisa. We probably only had about 1.5 hours in Pisa, so we didn’t really get to look around.

So is Pisa worth visiting?

I do think that it was worth stopping at Pisa. If you need to have driving breaks as you’re exploring Europe, then it’s a good stop along the way. And it’s famous and fun, you know?

However! Even given the fact that there is an entire town to explore, the main attraction really is the Tower and the other buildings in the square. There isn’t much else in Pisa that you wouldn’t see in other Italian towns, so you probably only need a morning or afternoon, maybe a day trip if you wanted to stretch it out.

It might be worth looking into going up the tower, to add a different dimension to your trip, or checking out some of the other things, like the museums in Pisa, to fill up a little more time.

You can also get public transport from Florence (about an hour) and from Rome (about 3 hours), so keep that in mind if you don’t have a car.

Quick-fire tips for visiting Pisa

• Go early or late to avoid the crowds at the Tower. To be fair, you’ll probably have quite a lot of people around any time you go, but try to be selective if you can.
• If you want to go up the Tower, book your tickets in advance
• Be sure to wear comfy shoes if you’re going up the tower, too!
• Check out the rest of the town and not just the square
• And have fun with the photos you can take. Be a tourist!

I’d love to hear if you’ve been to Pisa? Was it worth the visit for you? 

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Tours to Pisa Italy