Nothing prepares you for that first glimpse through the gateway. A wide green lawn, and set on it like ornaments on a cloth, the white marble cathedral, the round baptistery, the cemetery cloister of the Camposanto, and of course the bell tower, leaning at an angle that looks wrong no matter how many photographs you have seen. The Piazza del Duomo in Pisa, also called the Field of Miracles, was one of the first places in Italy to be listed by UNESCO, back in 1987.
The buildings date from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries, when Pisa was a rich maritime republic trading across the Mediterranean, and they were built partly with the spoils of its wars. The tower began to tilt soon after construction started in the late twelfth century, because the ground beneath it is soft, and work stopped and started over almost two centuries. Engineers stabilised it in a major project around the turn of the millennium, and you can climb the worn spiral stairs to the top if you book ahead. Galileo was born in Pisa, and legend says he dropped weights from the tower to study falling bodies, though historians doubt the story.
Riding into Pisa requires a little care. The historic centre has limited traffic zones, the ZTL, monitored by cameras, and entering without permission brings fines that may follow you home months later. Park at the edge, in designated motorcycle areas, and walk the last few hundred metres. The roads around are mostly flat and busy, but the hills to the east, the Monte Pisano, offer winding routes towards Lucca, and the coast road towards Livorno and beyond leads to some of Tuscany's best riding further south.
Pisa will not leave you short of a pump or a meal. The area around the piazza is crowded with souvenir stalls and street vendors, so step a few blocks away for better food at better prices. Try cecina, a thin chickpea flatbread baked in wood ovens, and walk along the Arno in the evening, when the palaces glow in the low light and the crowds by the tower thin out.