Pisa in January

It's another early start. Our apartment is really handy for the station and so we get the 8.21 train to Pisa. There are different types of trains between La Spezia and Pisa which can be quicker or slower, anything between 50 minutes and an hour and a half and cheaper or more expensive. We choose a regional one which costs €7.90 per person and gets us to Pisa San Rossore in an hour and ten minutes. Pisa San Rossore station is a lot nearer to Campo dei Miracoli, which is where we are heading first, than Pisa Central station which is a 25 minute walk. 

In fact, we walk out of the station, follow the Torre Pendente sign to the left and a few minutes later around the next corner we can already see the Leaning Tower itself. It's not quite quarter to ten on a Monday morning in January but there are already quite a few people around, but no queues, even if the stalls outside the area are only just opening. 

The wind is icy cold in gusts but it's bright and sunny and ideal photo weather. Most tourists are taking the I'm propping up the leaning tower picture, but, well, I'm a tourist too right now so I do too. 

We are skipping the option of spending €18 to go up the Leaning Tower and also the other to-be-paid-for monuments although we do get a glimpse in at the Baptistery, and have decided just on the free ticket to go into the Duomo. This is partly because we have just one day in Pisa and partly because the monuments equally interesting from the outside, individually splendid in pristine white marble their majestic collective collocation on the contrastingly horizontal green of Campo dei Miracoli is indeed exceptionally pleasing to the eye. 

So, first of all, we do due justice and walk all around Duomo, Camposanto, Torre and Battistero and observe the magnificent details, 

and then we get the timed ticket to the Duomo. Inside, the Duomo makes for an interesting visit, perhaps a mix of styles but the highlights are the Cristo Pantocratore, 

because it's a figure we particularly like, and the splendid outsized pulpit by Giovanni Pisano. We spend quite a while inside, slowly observing the details, also of the floor by the pulpit when I try to look up a description of it on the Internet and to do so take off my glasses at which point a lens and the tiny screw holding it in fall out; the lens is immediately found but the screw will remain forever somewhere there. 

Outside it's still cold but sunny and we walk towards the centre (and an optician). Borgo stretto is a fascinating and as the name hints narrow street with porticoes, we wander around the centre a while, better now I'm back to seeing properly, and then start thinking about lunch because it's nearly midday. At five minutes to twelve we are outside the Colonnino restaurant thinking it must be closed and almost get a fright when thirty seconds later the wooden shutters in front of the door open from the inside. We found this place on the Internet after a difficult search for a fixed price menu/work lunch in a city reluctant to provide either. It would seem absurd not to at this point, so we go in. There's a choice of 3/4 reasonably interesting first dishes and the same for seconds. We have a medium sized portion of pasta with mushrooms and sausage, not bad, then Andrea has untypical chicken curry, surprisingly good and I the more local polpettone, decidedly eatable with a small salad garnish. Water, bread and a smallish glass of wine are included and while portions are not enormous the restaurant is pleasant and we eat enough to get us by until evening for eleven euros each.

Back outside the sun is shining and walking along the sunny side of the Lungarno is decidedly pleasant. Next stop is the third most historical caffè in Italy after Florian in Venice and Caffè Greco in Rome, Caffè dell'Ussero in Palazzo Agostini o Ussero, one of the most beautiful of the many beautiful palazzi along the Lungarno. 

Inside, the Caffè, nowadays has little of its ancient splendor but is sunny, warm and quiet, with a blissful absence of piped music, and pictures of illustrious past habitués, so we linger a while. Slow is also the return outdoors, the sun is finally warming and we are sheltered from the harsh wind so we can slow our pace as far as the Naval museum and the bridge beyond. We cross over, partly for the views of the sunny side for some photos and partly to see the tinily perfect Santa Maria della Spina which is doubly closed, once because it's Monday afternoon and twice for unexplained reasons for the whole week. Back across Ponte di Mezzo we walk a little more on the sunny side before heading back into the shade along Borgo Stretto to Piazza Cavalieri, a particularly fine square thanks to the intricately decorated exterior of Palazzo della Carovana which dates back to the 16th  century although the extra large marble staircase which covers some of the 'graffiti/etchings' was added in 1821. The Palazzo del Orologio and the somewhat mutilated fountain in the centre also contribute to making the square well worth the short walk from Piazza dei Miracoli even for those in a hurry.

We're not, so we then proceed to Chiesa Santa Caterina di Alessandria in the Square of the same name near the square, gardens and statue to Pietro Leopoldo I. Elegant in the typical local style of bands of white and dark marble outside, inside its gloomy yet atmospheric calm highlights the stained glass windows depicting saints. Very nice. By now, like the sun, we are flagging a little, it's getting colder again and after a last leisurely look at Piazza dei Miracoli which is so leisurely we go from being too early for our train to nearly missing it, we head for the station. To get to the automatic ticket machines you have to go up the steps to platform 1 and they are outside the former station, now closed. We catch the regional 16.40 which takes just an hour and ride home warm and almost sleepy through the dusk.