The blue on the river
The sky front amid ochre sisters — the bank's marker.
LoneWolf1976 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Francesco Bini — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Francesco Bini — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Francesco Bini — CC BY-SA 4.0
On the Arno's bank glows the Blue Palace — its odd sky colour an eighteenth-century Russian owner's taste — Pisa's modern cultural jewel: a banking foundation returned it to the city as an arts hall, its noble floors a free museum of period furnishing, Pisan-school painting and Galileo mementoes of this his native quarter, while the exhibition floors host a succession of world names. The blockbusters made its name and queues: Impressionists to Picasso, Escher, Dalí — capital-grade shows in the small university city, at kinder prices and gentler crowds. It is equally the pretext for discovering the Lungarni: Pisa's Arno banks with their coloured palaces curving along the river — Tuscany's loveliest unknown walk, golden at sunset above all.
The sky front amid ochre sisters — the bank's marker.
Picasso, Escher, Dalí — capitals visiting Pisa.
Tuscany's loveliest unknown promenade from its door.
Lungarno Gambacorti 9, 56125 Pisa
Museo Nazionale di Palazzo RealeA national museum inside Pisa's royal palace, on the bank of the Arno in the cit2 minutes walk4.1
San Michele in BorgoIn 1597 and 1598, on the marble front of this church in the middle of Pisa's bus5 minutes walk4.5
Piazza dei CavalieriThe Knights' Square is the second Pisa the tower crowds miss: the city's Roman f6 minutes walk4.7
Domus MazzinianaThe man who imagined Italy before it existed died inside it under an English ali6 minutes walk4.6
Pisa Botanical GardenIn 1543 — some sources say 1544 — Cosimo I de' Medici ordered a garden planted s6 minutes walk4.3With a show that calls you: yes, add its hour. Without: the free floors are a pleasant half hour in passing — and truthfully the Lungarni themselves are the prize: fifteen bank minutes suffice to change your idea of Pisa.
Station along Corso Italia to Ponte di Mezzo (the Lungarni's heart) and Palazzo Blu, north to the Knights' square, the white field as finale — an hour's walk joining the three Pisas: mercantile, riverine, academic, before the miracle.