Travelers in the know – or at least those who are prone to planning ahead – are finding it easier and easier to avoid lines in Italy and book tours in advance. Many sights are online and offer advance ticket sales, sometimes for a small fee and sometimes for free, allowing you to bypass the often hours-long line (think Florence‘s Uffizi in July) and get right to the sight-seeing. As a planner myself, I think these online ticket sales are fantastic things – I only advise you to not skip past the line looking too smug, lest you be tripped by another visitor who’s still got an hour or more of waiting ahead of him.
I’ve written before about getting advance tickets for Rome’s Colosseum (a new development, and very welcome) as well as Venice’s Basilica San Marco (and those puppies are free!), but here’s one I didn’t know about until I stumbled on this site recently. Some people feel like they haven’t seen Italy until they’ve seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa, so whether you’re going to make it a speedy one-hour visit en route from one city to another or you’re going to stay in Pisa a day or two, this is a great resource for planning your trip and getting a ticket in advance to climb the tower.
Tickets to climb the Leaning Tower cost €15 if you just show up. Buying them in advance will cost you an extra €2, but if you’re on a tight schedule and you’re visiting at the height of the tourist season (which runs from May through September these days), you might want to make sure you don’t find yourself at the back of a long line. Worse yet, there are plenty of busy summer days when the limited number of tower tickets actually sell out.
To check the calendar and buy your tickets in advance, go to the ticket office website for Pisa’s Leaning Tower, and then follow the instructions. And don’t forget to print out your ticket voucher after you’ve reserved your time (in half-hour increments)!
You can also book Pisa day tours to make more of your visit while you’re in the city.
photos, top to bottom, by: M4rvin, Yaisog Bonegnasher, Yaisog Bonegnasher
PRINT 
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello,
I was hoping to get 4 Leaning Tower of Pisa tickets for July 3, 2011. However I noticed that the first date available is July 5th. Is there any way to get tickets for July 3rd in advance?
Thank you for your help.
Gary
When you say you noticed the 5th was the first date available, do you mean that no date before July 5th had tickets for sale when you looked at the official ticket selling website? If that’s the case, then I would guess tickets are sold out for the dates before that. Your next best bet may be to book a guided tour of the city that includes the tower – otherwise, you can take your chances that there will be cancellations when you arrive. Here’s a guided tour: http://www.bootsnall.com/lt/url/go/3682
Hi I would like to purchase tickets to climb to leaning tower of Pisa for either July 6 afternoon or July 7th morning is fine.
Do you still have it available and how do I buy them?
please let me know
You’ll need to go to the official ticket site for the Leaning Tower of Pisa (linked in the article above) to find out what tickets are available. You’ll be able to buy them right from that website.
You can also learn more about visiting the tower here:
http://www.italylogue.com/planning-a-trip/leaning-tower-of-pisa.html
We are going to stay in Pisa on 24.12.2011. Is it possible to climb the leaning tower on 24.12?
You will need to visit the website linked in the article above and then choose that date from the booking calendar to see if there are any available tickets.