Pisa, June 30th, 2026 (The Berlin Spectator) – On a hot day in late June, a Dutch plane full of tourists from all over Europe lands at Galileo Galilei Airport. Since there are hardly any local transport connections here, vacationers have two options: They can either take a taxi to their hotel or hop on the “PisaMover” a weird train accelerated by a cog railroad. Within minutes, it will take its passengers to Pisa Central Station, which is about as small as an average S-Bahn train station in Berlin.
Pisa, a town of some 90,000 inhabitants, does not have any subway, nor are there trams. The only way to get around is a network of Diesel-sucking buses. Many locals seem to be annoyed about all those tourists who invade their town. Hardly anyone has the patience to explain the public transport system, or anything, to visitors.
The next day, the excessive heat makes things difficult for tourists who are not used to it. While the locals stay in their shady houses and apartments as much as they can, those sweating visitors invade the area around the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This is where the first surprise hits them: As it turns out, the tower with its four-degree lean is part of Pisa Cathedral.
Laws of Falling Bodies
This issue the tower has was caused by a mistake made some 850 years ago. In the year 1173, the groundbreaking ceremony took pace even though the builders had not checked the consistency of the ground. So, they started erecting the tower. Once they got to the third floor, the construction started to slope. This was when the construction needed to be halted for 100 years. Later, they continued, paused again, and started yet again afterwards, until the tower was completed in 1372, exactly 199 years after they had started erecting it.
Efforts to equate the imbalance failed. But the Tower of Pisa is still standing. And it is a tourist magnet. Besides, Galileo Galilei, the engineer, astronomer, physicist and polymath Pisa’s airport was named after, used the weird tower to come up with the laws of falling bodies. The latter state that, in a vacuum, all objects fall with the exact same constant acceleration, regardless of their mass. Does this explain why the Nutella sandwich always hits the white carpet on the wrong side? It probably does.
In front of the tower, countless tourists from lots of countries, including the U.S., all want to take the very same photograph with their cell phone cameras: One person holds up their forefinger while the photographer makes sure he or she shoots the picture in a way that makes it look like the photo model is holding the leaning tower to keep it from falling.
Terrible Rap Tunes
Tourists, African souvenir vendors and two bored locals with horse-drawn carriages are part of the scene at the Piazza dei Miracoli. Hardly anyone seems to be giving a damn about the brutal heat, except for the two horses. They do not look too happy.
Checking out too many other attractions such as the Mura di Pisa, the former city walls, the Palazzo della Carovana, the Santa Maria della Spina, a tiny Gothic church, or the promenade known as the Lungarni di Pisa, is almost impossible at 38 degrees Centigrade (100 degrees Fahrenheit), which is why many of the tourists here disappear in the city’s cooler museums or in cafés where the soda consumption is rather high these days.
We do make it to the synagogue in spite of the heat. It looks deserted. A lady on a bicycle says, they only open now and then. At the Jewish congregation’s headquarters next door, nobody answers the bell. This could mean there are not enough congregation members to keep the synagogue operational.
Lemon and Vanilla
There is one more thing tourists in Pisa do: They hop on bus no. 10 in order to get to the Marina di Pisa, also known as the beach. The 30-minute trip is a little annoying, also because a bunch of teenagers is on the bus. They shout and do not seem to care about the other passengers at all. The minute they start playing terrible Italian rap tunes at high volume through a portable party loudspeaker, the bus driver has enough.
He parks the vehicle and squeezes himself through all the passengers, until he stands in the middle of that group of teenagers. This is when he starts shouting at them, using all Italian swear words ever compiled in dictionaries. He threatens to throw them out of the bus if they do not shut up. Those threats work, at least sort of. For the rest of the trip, there is no more loud music.
The beach itself consists of millions of little stones. Entering the sea is hardly possible without shoes, which is why the author of this piece walks into the water in his sneakers. Even though the Ligurian Sea is about as warm as chicken soup, it feels fresh, due to the fact that the air temperature is brutal.
Oh, yes, the lemon and vanilla ice cream they offer at the “Orso Bianco” parlor is excellent. Due to the heat, hardly anyone is seen strolling down the promenade.
Discovering Pisa takes a day or two, not counting the museums. We decide to conquer three more marvels in the area, namely Livorno, Lucca and Florence.
