Pisa Attractions: What You Should Really See Beyond the Tower

3) The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta – where Galileo was baptized

The Cathedral is the oldest and most important building on the square, and it's the reason why the Piazza exists at all. In 1063, the Pisan fleet defeated the Saracens off Palermo. In the same year, the foundation stone was laid with the spoils – the Square of Miracles is literally built from war gains.

Architect Buscheto blended influences known to the trading city: Roman antiquity, Lombard forms, Byzantine dome elements, and Islamic decoration. This precisely created the Pisan Romanesque style, which was later copied throughout Tuscany. Buscheto, by the way, is buried on the left side of the facade, in a walled-up sarcophagus – visitors walk past it daily without noticing.

And then there's Galileo Galilei. He was born in Pisa in 1564 and baptized here; the baptismal certificate is still in the church archives. The famous story that, as a student, he discovered a fundamental law of physics while watching a swinging lamp is probably too good to be true: the lamp, now called "Lampada di Galileo," was only hung in 1587 – years after the moment the legend describes. It still hangs there, though, in the nave. Find it.

4) The Baptistery – Italy's largest

The round building opposite the Cathedral is the largest baptistery in Italy. It was begun in 1152 by an architect with the most beautiful name in architectural history: Diotisalvi, "God save you." If you look at the exterior from bottom to top, you'll see a break in the middle of the building: one architectural style ends below, and a completely different one begins above, with the transition visible to the naked eye. Between them lay about a hundred years of construction and a change in architectural leadership.

Inside stands the pulpit by Nicola Pisano from 1260, Italy's first great Gothic pulpit. The real reason to go inside, however, is the acoustics. What this room does with a single sung note is hard to describe – you have to hear it. Every half hour, a supervisor stands in the middle and sings a few notes. Be inside then.

5) Camposanto Monumentale – the cemetery with imported soil

The long white building on the north side of the Piazza is a cemetery, and it is the quietest place in the square. The legend goes: in the early 13th century, a Pisan archbishop brought ship-loads of soil from the Holy Land back from a crusade. In this sacred soil, it was said, a body would decompose within a day. After that, no one in Pisa wanted to be buried anywhere else.

Inside, a cloister runs around a grassy courtyard, with over 600 gravestones and Roman sarcophagi on the walls. The most important artwork is "The Triumph of Death" by Buonamico Buffalmacco: a 15-meter-long fresco, created shortly after the great plague, depicting death sweeping over both powerful and poor alike. It is disturbing and magnificent at the same time.

On July 27, 1944, a bomb fragment hit the lead roof. The lead melted and ran over the frescoes – a large part of the imagery was lost. What you see today is the result of over seventy years of restoration.

6) Piazza dei Cavalieri – where Pisa was governed

Now you leave the museum district. Ten minutes southeast lies the Piazza dei Cavalieri, and this is where the actual city history happened. Beneath it lie the remains of a Roman forum. In the Middle Ages, it was called "Square of the Seven Streets" because seven alleys converged here, and it was the political heart of the free maritime republic.

In 1406, Pisa lost its independence to Florence. About 150 years later, a Medici Grand Duke had the square completely rebuilt – by Giorgio Vasari, the same man who designed the Uffizi in Florence. The Palazzo della Carovana was created with its incredible sgraffito facade: patterns, figures, and coats of arms scratched into the wet plaster. Here, aspiring knights learned cartography, mathematics, cosmography, and combat skills for three years. Today, the building houses the Scuola Normale Superiore, one of Italy's most prestigious universities.

To the left stands a dark, unassuming tower. A plaque hangs on it, and the story behind it is the city's most cruel: a Pisan count was imprisoned here with his sons and grandsons, and the key was thrown into the Arno. Dante immortalized him in the "Divine Comedy" – the scene is one of the most famous in world literature.

7) Borgo Stretto – the street under the arcades

From the Piazza dei Cavalieri, it's a five-minute walk to Borgo Stretto, Pisa's most elegant street. The name simply means "narrow alley" and doesn't do it justice: for centuries, this was the main trade route between the city center and the port on the Arno.

The covered arcades, the Portici, date from the 14th and 15th centuries. Wealthy merchants had them built for a very practical reason – medieval shopping mile logic that still holds true today. Under the arches are bookstores, cafés, fashion boutiques, and pharmacies, and in between stands the Church of San Michele in Borgo, whose origins date back to 990.

Here, you'll notice for the first time that Pisa is a university city. Around 45,000 students among 90,000 inhabitants – that noticeably shifts the street scene. In the evenings, the bars are full, at lunchtime, the benches.

8) Ponte di Mezzo and the Lungarni

The Borgo Stretto ends at the Arno, and there stands the Ponte di Mezzo, the "Bridge of the Middle." It lies exactly on the historical border between the two halves of the city, Tramontana in the north and Mezzogiorno in the south. From the middle of the bridge, you have the best view of the Lungarni – the riverside streets with their ochre and rose-colored palaces, which reflect in the calm water of the river.

And once a year, in June, this bridge becomes a battlefield. In the Gioco del Ponte, North and South Pisa compete against each other: over 700 people in 16th-century costumes, a procession on both banks, and then two teams push a seven-ton cart on rails. Whoever pushes the opposing side over the middle of the bridge wins. The precursor was so bloody that the game was banned for 128 years.

9) Santa Maria della Spina – the jewel on the water

A few hundred meters downstream, right on the riverbank, stands a tiny church that looks like an oversized reliquary: turrets, pinnacles, rosettes, figures of saints on every edge. Santa Maria della Spina is considered one of the most beautiful examples of Pisan Gothic art, and the best sculptors of their time worked on it – Giovanni Pisano, Andrea and Nino Pisano, Lupo di Francesco.

It received its current name in 1333 from a relic a merchant bequeathed to it. The name reveals which one – but the object itself is now in another church in the city.

The real sensation, however, is that the church still stands at all. In the 19th century, it was on the verge of collapse. Instead of demolishing it, it was decided to do something almost unimaginable at the time: it was taken apart stone by stone and rebuilt a little higher up. Today, when you stand in front of it, you see nothing of this – but the reason for the action is literally before your eyes when you look from the church to the river.

10) The Insider Tip: Pisa has more than one leaning tower

The soft alluvial soil that brought fame to the Campanile lies beneath the entire city. Accordingly, the famous tower is not alone: if you carefully observe the church towers in the center and east of the city while strolling, you'll notice that something else is tilting. Most tour groups walk past them because they are only looking for the one tower.

Other worthwhile places if you have time:

• Palazzo Blu on Lungarno Gambacorti: a bright blue palace directly on the river, with changing exhibitions inside. An eye-catcher even from the outside.
• Orto Botanico: the oldest university botanical garden in the world, founded in 1544. Small, shady, almost empty – and a few minutes from the Piazza dei Miracoli.
• Tuttomondo by Keith Haring: a huge mural on the church of Sant’Antonio, painted by the artist himself in 1989. It was one of his last works.
• The City Wall: parts of the medieval Mura are accessible and offer a view of the Piazza that you don't get from the ground.

If you want to experience Pisa rather than just tick it off your list, a format that naturally guides you to these spots is ideal: with the digital scavenger hunt through Pisa, you'll receive the history of each location on your phone, along with tasks that can only be solved by truly observing your surroundings.