Service Overview & Ratings: Popularity: «««  Higlights: Duration: 8 Hrs • The Leaning Tower of Pisa • Piazza dei Miracoli and the Cathedral • CityWalls of Lucca Travel Time: 3 Hrs Sightseeing Time: 5 Hrs

The Miracle Square with its leaning tower, cathedral, baptistery and “campo santo” form the architectural complex which is commonly considered one of the most beautiful in Europe. The nearby Lucca is a city with totally different character, it has a perfectly preserved historical center and city walls, is possibly the sight of Tuscany where its powerful past is very visible and enjoyable nowadays.

Pisa was a flowering town in the Middle Ages.  The greatest legacy is it’s unique architecture and art. The Duomo was the first cathedral in Tuscany where the innovative “Pisan-Romanesque” style was fully developed and later copied for many other churches built all over the western Mediterranean.  Inside, the main feature is the elaborate pulpit.  The Baptistery, in front of the facade contains anther Pisano's lovely pulpit.  You may want to also visit the Camposanto (holy field), a monumental cemetery said to have been filled by the "holy" dirt brought by the Pisan crusaders from the Hill of Cavalry in Jerusalem.

The Leaning Tower probably carries the most legends of buildings of its kind; perhaps it was deliberately constructed to lean.  Perhaps Galileo let objects of different weights fall from the tower and timed the fall to demonstrate his theories about bodies in motion and gravity rules.  The tower is said to lean approximately 14 feet from the perpendicular.  Climbing the tower is surely an evocative experience, and time permitting should not be missed. This is the only building in the world where one could get out at each single level and walk around its exterior 360°

A neighboring rival of Pisa, just to the north, is Lucca.  Her 16th century walls serve as a perfect introduction to the serene beauty of the city within.  Thanks to them, Lucca was protected from any siege; consequently, its historic center is perfectly preserved.  There you'll find landmarks diverse in appearance and history - from a medieval maze of alleyways to the Roman grid-like arrangement of passageways, from Renaissance loggias to Rococo facades.

Lucca has a distinctive look among Tuscany's towns; beneath red-tiled roofs, the buildings are brick, white or cream; the palaces are more open, less fortress-like, and the church crenellations rises slender and delicate toward the sky.  It is in flavor more feminine, more aristocratic, and more northern European than other cities in Tuscany.

Lucca flourished in the Middle Ages as a banking and merchant center, known principally for its beautiful silk.  Today the city is said to produce the finest olive oil in the world.

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