Truthful Trips

Italy has so many amazing places to see, from historic sites like Rome to romantic architecture of Venice, down to colourful coasts of Positano and Amalfi, and so many more. It is definitely one of my favourite countries, and my bucketlist seems to get bigger rather than smaller with new places I find in Italy.

So far on this journey, I have ticket off 3 cities of Italy – Pisa, Florence, and Venice. This blog post will focus on Pisa and Florence as you can see both cities in one short trip – 4 nights to be exact but you could also do it in 3 nights! You can find my trip to Venice here.

But before we get into the details, this blog has various links embedded so you can quickly access the things I talk about. Some of those links may be affiliate meaning I earn some commission through them however this is a disclaimer that this does not influence my opinion. I will still share my honest thoughts and only recommend what I would do myself.

We flew into Pisa from Manchester as flights to Pisa are so much cheaper than to Florence. The airport is quite close to the centre compared to a lot of airports – it was about a 30 minute walk to our accommodation – we stayed one night in ‘Royal Victoria Hotel’ through booking.com. For one night is cost us £75. Make sure to change to your dates for accurate pricing and availability!

As we flew in pretty late, I think we landed at 10/11pm we didn’t do much exploring that day or more appropriately night. We checked in and went to bed to get up early. Our check out was at 10am but we could leave our bags at the reception so that’s what we did.

We have booked the entrance to Leaning Tower of Pisa before our arrival – and I do recommend it for all attractions here or in Florence to avoid disappointment.

The tower was around £20, which included entrance to the cathedral. You can book the same here.

I found it to be a really cool experience and the views from the top are quite nice!! You can definitely feel the tilt when going up and down the stairs!

We also went inside the cathedral which is stunning! The details inside are breath-taking and probably one of my favourite cathedrals!

Of course, you can see plenty of people trying to have photos next to the tower, either holding it up or leaning against it. Funny moment, my boyfriend, went around and high-fived people – which someone of you may find funny or annoying. The same mixed reaction was received in the crowd. But life is not all that serious or it doesn’t have to be! He didn’t do it for tiktok or Instagram views, hence I actually have no footage of this – I wish I did just for my memories.

If you have more time, you can definitely spend more time here, and relax by the views – we we’re here for around 5 hours and that was plenty for us to enjoy it but Pisa doesn’t have much more to see. It is quite a small city.

Now onto Florence…

How did we combine this? Well, Florence is quite close to Pisa, about 1 ½ hours by train! And the tickets are pretty affordable – it cost us £16 each for a return journey! We have used Trainline to buy tickets – it makes it really easy to buy, validate them online (you have to validate all regional tickets now, yes even the online ones!) and it tells you the platform. It is something we use a lot in the UK so if you can’t have it or you don’t like it – you can also buy the tickets on Trenitalia or go to the ticket booth. Remember to validate!

Leave a comment if you would like a short blog on validating train tickets in Italy!

We got into Florence for around 6pm – we decided to avoid the attractions to leave the ‘wow’ moments for the next day. We headed to our hotel – The Social Hub Florence (booked through booking.com) – which was honestly one of the best hotels we have stayed at. The design and vibe of it was amazing! It was around £300 for 2 nights – you can go cheaper or more expensive depending on budget, but we thought the hotel was worth it.

We went out for some food in the area – a warning that places get busy in the evening as everyone is out and having drinks and dinner. So even though we were looking for just a pizza, most places were full. We did find a place that did takeaway pizza, so we ordered that and sat at a park we came across on the way. It wasn’t too bad of an idea as the evening was warm and the pizza was pretty good.

So, for reference, at this point, it is our second night in Italy.

The next day we headed out for the main attraction – the Duomo which is breath-taking! The design of it is so unique and captivating. It is also very pretty inside.

We had also booked online to climb the bell tower, which we definitely recommend but it is around 400 steps and can get quite steep. Even with the booking in advance there was a big queue and those that didn’t book before we’re told on the day that it is sold out for the next few days – so definitely book this early if you want to do it. It cost us around £35 each, and if you’re interested you can book here.

We then explored the streets, came to the Ponte Vecchio bridge, where you can see the river and a lot of small stalls selling various things. My boyfriend kept making references to Assassins Creed, so if you’re a fan or your partner is, this is also a fun addition to the city!

Approaching to sunset time, we headed towards Piazzale Michelangelo. Which is an amazinggg view point that looks over the city. It can get quite busy but we found a spot just a bit lower down, above the fountain, with the full view and not as many people. I would recommend going earlier and/or looking around for bit less obvious spots but with the view still visible.

We spent another night in Florence, and then checked out the next day at around 10am – again we could leave our bags and come back for them later. We booked a train for 5pm back to Pisa, so we still had plenty of time left.

We had also made a booking for the Arnolfo tower which gave us access inside and to climb up the tower. This has some really nice views over the Duomo, and all of Florence.

We then grabbed some food, and as it was our last day, we went to get the famous Florence steak – a local dish. We came across ‘Trattoria dall’Oste Chianineria’ but there are many more places where you can get the famous steak or local dishes, so worth putting it in google to see what’s out there!

Then we grabbed our bags from the hotel and headed to the train station.

When we got back to Pisa, it was coming close to sunset time, so we decided to drop of our bags at the hotel – Hotel Milano – again booked through booking.com because you can get quite good deals, and the more you book through them the more discounts and offers you will get!

We then went to sit by the tower and the cathedral. It did look quite magical at sunset and evening time.

To wrap up our trip, we stopped by a restaurant and ordered some tiramisu – which was the best one I’ve ever had – and trust me, I have had a lot of tiramisu! I wish I got the name of the place, but they definitely promoted it outside of the restaurant.

The whole trip was a dream!! I would recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat.

So, where next in Italy? I plan to see Rome, Lake Garda, Milan, Sicily, Pompeii and the list will probably grow!

What’s your favourite place in Italy? What do you wish to see?

And don’t forget to check out my blog about Venice 🙂

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