From Dubrovnik, Yammy and I flew to Pisa. Our stopover in Rome ended up being rather longer than anticipated, and we arrived in Pisa fairly late on a Saturday night. We’d intended to catch the train into the city, but we arrived after it stopped running, and joined the end of a rather long cab line.
Thirty minutes later, line haven’t not budged an inch, Yammy squirreled off to inflict his high school Italian (very convenient that. Came in quite useful.) on the general populace. He arrived back at the line with the story that there was a festival on, and that the cabs couldn’t get over the bridge…but that we could walk.
This seemed a little far-fetched, but we were game, so off we set on what we were sure was going to be a bit of a walk. We reasoned that maybe we’d find a cab somewhere else.
It turns out that Pisa airport to Pisa central is entirely walkable. Pisa downtown pretty much starts at the airport fence. Our hotel was only a couple of hundred meters from a certain notable tower and yet our walk was an easy 3km or so. Or it would have been, if it hadn’t been for the thousands of people on the street in our way. We’d arrived on the night of Luminara, Pisa’s biggest party.
The next morning we got to gawk at a tower and a cathedral and a baptistery, but it could hardly compare.
ToDo: Invent Brilliant Title 
Was it even 3 km? I swear it was just around the corner. So utterly bizzare. I don’t think I’ll ever get over the fact that somebody built an airport walking distance from the city center. It’s not a train station! If I were a tenant in one of those buildings nearby, I’d be pissed. Or I’d just hang out, ride around on a scooter and drink macchiatos all day. Yeah, that sounds much better.
By: Alex on July 11, 2007
at 7:01 pm