Is It Easy To Go From Pisa Airport To Florence?

Pisa Airport is a low-cost airport mostly used by Ryanair and EasyJet, making it an option for people looking for a good deal. It's perfect of course if you are going to Pisa. But would it be a good option if you're going to Florence too?

Yes, it is easy to travel from Pisa Airport to Florence and it is a good option to fly into this airport if you want to visit Florence and find cheaper tickets. Generally, traveling in Tuscany and North-Central Italy is very easy with excellent train connections.

I went to Florence by flying into Pisa in May 2024, and for me, it worked great. Pisa is actually the busiest airport in Tuscany. The airport in Florence has a very short runway and is therefore not reliable since it's not possible to land for the most common aircraft types during bad weather for example.

The additional benefit was that I could plan for a half-day in Pisa and see the Leaning Tower before going back home. To be honest, and this is probably not the first time you will hear this if planning a trip to this region, Pisa is not worth more than a day trip. There's not that much to do that can't be done in any other Italian city except for the Leaning Tower.

One option is to take the bus. There are buses from outside the terminal going to Florence. Just exit the terminal and go straight. It's the quickest way if you can match a departure. As far as I could find out, they only depart every two hours. There's also another catch with the buses. The buses are going to Florence Airport. That is quite far from the tourist part of the city. The sights, and most likely your hotel, will be at least a tram ride away, or a taxi ride. It takes about 25 minutes by tram to go from there into the city center.

The best option, at least for me, was to take the train. It takes roughly the same time (again, if you can match a departure). This was especially true on the way back as I wanted to do some quick sightseeing of Pisa before leaving. Pisa Airport is technically within walking distance (20-30 minutes) of the city. It would take around 50-60 minutes to walk to the Leaning Tower of Pisa for example.

You can easily get from Pisa Airport to Pisa Central Station in five minutes by traveling on the Pisa Mover, a driverless people mover between the two locations, with a quick stop midway at an airport parking lot. It costs €6 and at peak times there are departures every 8-15 minutes throughout the day. To get to the Pisa Mover when you arrive at the airport you just go straight and exit the building, then you take a left and walk about 200 meters, and then you are there. You can also go inside if the weather is bad, but there are more crowds to pass through, and it's generally slower.

At Pisa Airport it's easy and quick to catch a train to Florence. They depart every 30 or 60 minutes, depending on what time of the day you arrive. The advantage of this route instead of taking the bus is that the train will take you to Santa Maria Novella Railway Station, which is the Central Station of Florence, located right in the middle of the Old Town. The walking distance to the Cathedral is 5-10 minutes.

For me, it took 20 minutes from when my plane arrived until I was waiting for the train with a ticket at the platform in Pisa. It was easy to find the directions and the distances were short 20 minutes is a very quick transfer time to go from the airplane seat to the central station in the city, and few airports can match that. The train takes around one hour, plus or minus a few minutes depending on which route your specific train takes. I took the first picture in Florence, outside of the train station, at 10:07. Three minutes shy of 90 minutes after landing.