Airplane, Pisa

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Easyjet and Ryanair are amongst the European budget carriers who fly into Pisa. It's a useful starting point for an exploration of Tuscany.

www.skyscanner.net will give you carriers and, often, fares for your dates and route.

The vast majority of people who land at Pisa go elsewhere...mainly Florence. But I have found Pisa makes a good place to base oneself. Thew good public transport in Italy means most places are easily accessible for daytrips (including the Cinque Terre villages) although you may sometimes have to go into Florence first (as for Siena).

So, to get into Pisa from the airport you have several choices..

You can, obviously, take a taxi. The airport is very, very near to the town.

You can take a train direct from the airport to Pisa Centrale station. It takes about 5 minutes because the train goes very, very slowly...I don;t think the distance is much more than a nile. One way fare is 1.10 euro. Train times, details and fares in English on

http://www.trenitalia.com/homepage_en.html

Search for 'Pisa aeroporto'.

Or you can take the LAM Rossa bus, which takes a circular route airport>Pisa Centrale>Campo dei Miracoli and back again. The bus stop is directly outside Arrivals, and pretty much unmissable. You can get a ticket from the ticket machine (which was out of order when I visited) or from the driver (costs a bit more, at 1.50 euro). Travel time to Pisa Centrale is about 10 minutes and buses are frequent. Timetables and route maps on http://www.cpt.pisa.it/

If you want to go to Florence then there are some trains direct from the airport, but you most often have to change trains and platforms at Pisa Centrale. Direct trains take around an hour, other trains take from 1h 15 mins or so depending on departure. Times and details on the Trenitalia link above (search for Pisa aeroporto, as before).

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Pisa has a tiny but most of the time overcrowded airport, Aeroporto Galileo Galilei, with flights to other Italian airports, almost every country in Europe and has even added a direct flight to New York JFK.
The airlines serving the airport include Air France, Air One, British Airways, Belle Air, easyJet, Finnair, Air Nostrum, Lufthansa, Ryan Air and Thomsonfly.

The airport has its own train station (50 meters away), which connected with the main station but has direct access to highways, motorways too.
For that you are better off with the city bus Nr.3 (leaves every 10 minutes, and takes about 10 minutes).
Airport car rentals include Avis, and Europcar. only in case, if you need to drive outside the city because the parking is extremely limited and expensive.

Address: Michele Viaggi Via Turati 24

Update: Wizz Air starts its new service from Budapest to Pisa from 1st of July 2010. Pisa is the sixth Italian destination, which is reachable via Budapest by Wizz Air. The service flies weekly three times.
Tickets may be reserved online - wizzair.com

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We flew to Pisa with Ryan Air from Stanstead Airport. As with all budget airlines, there are often good bargains to be had, especially if you can be a bit flexible bout your travel dates, but they aren’t called “no frills” for nothing! No reserved seats, no (free) food or drink, no fancy service. But you get what you pay for, and if you prefer to spend your money when you get to your destination rather than en route to it, this is a good option. Our flights worked out at around £50 each, including all taxes, and if we’d been prepared to be even more flexible we could have got them cheaper than that.

And as you can see, whether cheap or fancy, you can always enjoy the great views of the Italian Lakes as you fly over – weather permitting of course!

Other airlines flying here include British Airways, Air France, Alitalia, Easy Jet, Iberia and Lufthansa.

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Pisa airport is a medium sized airport and therefore fairly easy to navigate around. It is a five minute train ride and a 30 minute walk to the 'Piazza dei Miracoli' and its leaning tower from the train station. There are two sets of check in desks in two separate buildings (if you can't find your number) both located at the end of the train plaforms. I have found checking in and baggage searches are fine but be warned of long delays (30 mins min.) just to get through passport control as they appear to be understaffed (Oct 2007). I arrived with 200 people waiting and one man examining passports!

Pisa is home to the Galileo Galilei Airport. The centre can be reached in 10 minutes by city bus - the bus line L.A.M Rossa connects the airport, the central train station and Campo dei Miracoli. Otherwise the centre can be reached in 5 minutes by train.

Ryanair have chaged there policy on luggage allowences 15th march 06, if 2 poeple are travaling together you now cannot pool your luggage allowence together ,the rule now is 1 case per passanger ,as happened to me and ryan air wanted to chage £16.50 for being 3 klios over weight or buy a seprate bag to unload the case into for £3.00 ,luckly our friends had room in their case to take our extra weight

Pisa's Aeroporto Galileo Galilei (information tel 050.500.707, www.pisa-airport.com ) is 2km south of Centrale station.

It has direct access to the Firenze-Pisa-Livorno dual carriageway (Pisa Centro - Aeroporto exit), to the Genova-Rosignano A12 motorway (Pisa Centro exit), to the Firenze-Pisa Nord A11 motorway (through the Pisa Nord linking stretch with the A12), and to road SS 1 “Aurelia”. Traffic nearly always flows smoothly on the entire road network

Pisa is the gateway to Tuscany. The airport "Galileo Galilei" is a good starting point for your journey to this wonderful area of Italy. The airport is rather small, easy to find your way around and close to the highway. There are some shops, eateries, rental car agencies, a bank, and ATM.
It's also very close to the center of Pisa (only 1.5 km). You can take a bus, train or taxi to the center and it will take about 5 to 10 minutes.

Tickets can be bought at the information office in the arrival hall (right hand side). The train station is on the left side of the airport building and you will pay 1,10 EUR to go to "Pisa Centrale".

You can leave your luggage at the check-in luggage (next to the information office). The counter is open from 8 am to 8 pm and you have to pay 6 EUR per luggage (quite expensive!).

And then at 20.55 I had my flight back home.

The flight time from Pisa to Brussels South - Charleroi is 1.50 h. So normally we would arrive in Charleroi around 22.45.

But we had an half an hour delay, as there was a problem with the number of passengers. No, no overbooking or so.

On the passenger list there were 179 passengers, and on board there were 180 passengers. First we were recounted several times, and then they checked if everyone was on the right plane.
Finally they started with checking each name on the passenger list. And what was the problem, on board there were a father and son with the same name (like senior and junior), so twice the same name and the computer had counted this only as one person. So it was the computer which had made a mistake. A half an hour later we could leave for Charleroi, where we arrived safely after a quiet flight.

Price for the ticket : 64 euro (taxes included)

Pisa has a rather small airport, very close to the centre of town.
And Pisa Airport has also its own trainstation
"PISA AEROPORTO"

Pisa Airport is the ONLY place, where you may store your lugguage in lockers since sep.11th ( the reason for this is the fact, that your lugguage may be scanned first there !)

At all the trainstations of Pisa you might only be able to store your lugguage at a counter , not beeing open all day, but for restricted times only. And at these places I always have the feeling, someone might search my lugguage while I am exploring the city

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The Concorde over Piazza dei Miracoli is a trick made by Photoshop - And when you like to visit the Concorde, have a look on my Sinsheim-page with one of the best technical museums in Europe !