A guide to handling luggage in Pisa

Only a small one. The Opera della Primaziale Pisana, which runs the monuments, accepts small bags and backpacks up to 20 x 30 x 38 cm, and everything larger has to stay behind. Suitcases and large luggage are not allowed on the site at all, so plan where they go before your ticket time.

No. Bags, handbags and luggage have to be left in the cloakroom before you climb, and you go up with your phone, your camera and yourself. The staircase is narrow and turns constantly, which is the reason for the rule.

Yes. The Opera della Primaziale Pisana runs a free cloakroom reserved for people visiting the Tower, at the northern ticket office. It keeps the same hours as the Tower, and you are asked to be there fifteen minutes before the time printed on your ticket.

The cloakroom is built for the things you carry on a visit, a small backpack, a handbag, a camera bag. It is not a luggage deposit: large suitcases are not accepted anywhere on the monument site, so a full-size bag needs a proper storage before you get there.

Somewhere in the city, before you walk to Campo dei Miracoli. A self-service locker in the centre is the simple version: you drop everything once, walk to the Tower with nothing, and pick it all up on your way to the station or the airport.

Not luggage in the ordinary sense. The free cloakroom exists for Tower visitors and small items only, and there is no general left-luggage service on the square. Anything larger has to be stored before you arrive, and the nearest self-service lockers are down in the historic centre, ten to fifteen minutes away on foot.

The lockers on the site belong to the Tower cloakroom and are tied to a Tower ticket and a time slot. They are not a place to leave a suitcase for the afternoon.

For the length of your visit. You deposit before you climb and collect straight after, and the cloakroom closes when the Tower does. It is not designed for a whole day in the city.

The same restriction applies across the monuments of Campo dei Miracoli: large bags and suitcases do not come in. Even where a small backpack is tolerated, walking a cathedral with luggage is not a visit anyone enjoys.

You will be turned away from the climb and will have to solve the problem on the spot, with a ticket that has a fixed time on it. Missing your slot because you were looking for somewhere to put a bag does not get you a refund, which is why the storage decision belongs at the start of the day, not at the ticket desk. Leaving the bags with us on the way up costs a few euro and a few minutes.

Our luggage storage in the centre of Pisa is at Piazza Giovan Battista Donati 2, roughly a ten to fifteen minute walk from Campo dei Miracoli, with the old town in between. You leave your bags with us, walk up to the Tower unencumbered, and come back through Piazza dei Cavalieri and Borgo Stretto.

There are paid left-luggage options in and around the station. They are typically staffed desks with fixed opening hours and a price charged per bag, so check the closing time before you count on one, especially if your train back is late in the evening.

Italian stations largely removed self-service lockers years ago, and what you find at Pisa Centrale is a counter service rather than a wall of lockers. If you specifically want a locker you close yourself with your own code, that is a city-centre service, not a station one.

You hand each bag over at a desk, show an ID document, and receive a receipt to bring back when you collect. The price is per bag and usually per block of hours, so two people with three bags between them pay three times.

Counter services close, and once they close your bag is inside until they open again. If your plan involves a late arrival or an early departure, check the opening hours of whatever you use before you leave anything in it.

Station services charge by the bag and by time, so the cost climbs with the number of pieces rather than with the space you use. A locker priced per locker instead of per bag is usually the cheaper answer for a couple or a family: ours in Pisa starts at €3.50.

Pisa San Rossore is the small stop nearest to the Leaning Tower, and it is not a station where you should expect to find a left-luggage service. The self-service lockers are down in the historic centre, ours at Piazza Giovan Battista Donati 2, so plan the drop-off there rather than counting on finding something at the platform.

About twenty-five minutes on foot, straight up through the centre and across the Arno, or a short bus ride. It is a pleasant walk without bags and a long one with them.

You can, and plenty of people do it, but it is two kilometres of pavement each way and the historic streets are paved in stone. Our store sits roughly on that line, in the middle of the old town, so dropping the bags once on the way is usually worth more than the money it costs.

If you have a few hours between connections, the centre is the right place to leave them: you store once, see the Tower, and collect on the way back to the platform. Our lockers in the centre of Pisa are open from 7:30 to 22:30 and are priced by time, not by the number of bags.

Galileo Galilei is a small airport and left-luggage there is limited and priced per bag per day. It also has the wrong geography for a day in Pisa: you would carry your bags out to the airport and back into the city instead of leaving them where you are actually walking.

Do not plan around finding a self-service locker wall at the airport. If you want a locker you open with your own code, look in the city centre.

In the centre, and collect on your way out. The airport is five minutes from Pisa Centrale by the automated shuttle, so a locker in town is not a detour: it is on the line you are already travelling. Our Pisa store is at Piazza Giovan Battista Donati 2, about twenty minutes on foot from the station.

An automated shuttle runs between the airport and Pisa Centrale station and takes about five minutes. From the station you are a walk or a short bus ride from the historic centre.

Around half an hour door to door, counting the shuttle to Pisa Centrale and the walk or bus up through the city. It is close enough that Pisa works as a stop between two flights.

Yes, and it is the usual reason people store with us. Collect your bags in the afternoon, walk down to the station, and take the shuttle out to the airport, just leave yourself room before our 22:30 closing time.

Our lockers open at 7:30, so an early-morning departure means collecting the night before rather than at dawn. If your flight is very early, take your bags with you the evening before.

Airport services price per bag per day, which adds up quickly for two people. A city locker priced per locker and per hour is usually the better deal for a single day, and it saves you the trip back out to the terminal.

Comfortably. The Tower, the Cathedral, the Baptistery, Piazza dei Cavalieri and Borgo Stretto sit within a compact centre, and half a day is enough to see all of it properly. Bags are the thing that turns a short visit into a long one.

It is one of the easiest day trips in Tuscany, about an hour by train, which is why so many people arrive with luggage in tow on their way somewhere else. Storing at the start of the day is what makes it work.

You can walk the city with a suitcase, but you cannot take it into the monuments, and that is the part people discover too late. Leave it somewhere central, a few steps from Piazza dei Cavalieri in our case, and the whole visit changes.

The centre is flat, which helps, but it is paved in stone and cobbles for long stretches and there are bridges over the Arno. Wheels do not enjoy it, and neither do you in August, which is the argument for dropping everything once in the centre and walking the rest with your hands free.

There are no municipal public lockers in Pisa. What exists is private: staffed desks that charge per bag, and self-service lockers like ours that charge per locker for a block of time.

In the historic centre itself, which is the point. Our self-service lockers are at Piazza Giovan Battista Donati 2, a few steps from Piazza dei Cavalieri and a short walk from the Tower, so you store where you are already going rather than doubling back.

We are open every day, including Sundays, from 7:30 to 22:30. Sunday is exactly the day when smaller shop-based services are more likely to be closed, so it is worth confirming hours before relying on one.

Our Pisa lockers run from 7:30 to 22:30. If your timing falls outside that, message us on WhatsApp before you arrive and we will tell you what is possible rather than leaving you to find out at the door.

Cruise visitors usually come from Livorno for a few hours and want their hands free for exactly that window. A locker in the centre priced by time fits a shore excursion better than a per-bag desk.

Yes, and it is a common use: check out in the morning, store the bags for the day, and collect them before checking in somewhere else in the evening. One locker holds several pieces at one price.

Most hotels will hold bags for their own guests on the day of departure, and if you are staying in one it is the obvious first thing to ask. The limits are that it ties you to going back there and that hotels are rarely near everything you want to see.

As a rule, no. Hotel storage is a courtesy for guests, and a reception that accepts a stranger's bag is taking on a responsibility it has no reason to take. A public luggage storage is the service designed for that, and ours in the historic centre of Pisa takes anyone, guest or not.

Often they cannot. Small B&Bs and holiday apartments frequently have no staffed desk and no spare room, and they are turned over between one guest and the next on the same day. If you booked an apartment, assume you will need somewhere else to put your bags.

The usual pattern in Italy is check-in from the early afternoon and check-out by mid-morning, which leaves a gap of several hours at both ends of a stay. That gap, twice, is what luggage storage exists for.

You have a few hours and a city that takes a few hours to see. Store the bags first, with us or anywhere central, do the Tower and the centre, and arrive at your accommodation when the room is actually ready.

Usually for guests, sometimes for a small charge, and almost never for people who are not staying there. It is worth asking directly rather than assuming, especially if your bags need to stay past the day of check-out.

It varies a great deal. A bag behind a staffed reception is one thing; a bag in an unattended room off a lobby is another, and you cannot always tell which you are getting. A locker that only your own code opens removes the question.

If your hotel is central, will hold the bags for the hours you need, and is on your way, use the hotel. If it is out of the centre, or you have already checked out and want to end the day at the station, a storage in the middle of town costs little and saves the detour. We are open every day from 7:30 to 22:30.

It is a room of lockers you operate yourself. You pay at a kiosk, choose your own code, put your things in, close the door, and the locker is yours until you come back, with no queue, no form, and no handing your bag to anyone.

Two things: the price is per locker rather than per bag, and there is no counter to queue at or to close at an awkward hour. If you are travelling as a couple or a family, the per-locker price is normally where the difference shows up. Ours in Pisa is priced that way.

Per locker. Whatever fits inside travels for one price, so a backpack alongside a suitcase costs the same as the suitcase alone.

The locker opens with a code that you choose and nobody else knows, in a room that is kept under watch. The important part is the one you control: do not share your code, and do not write it on your ticket.

A short number you pick yourself when you start the deposit, and enter again to open the locker. It replaces a key, so there is nothing to lose during the day.

Yes, and it is usually the cheapest way to travel in a group: the bags go in together, and whoever holds the code opens it. Just agree in advance on who that is.

Nothing perishable, nothing alive, nothing dangerous or illegal, and no cash, documents or valuables you would not want out of your sight. Everything else that fits is fine, and our terms of use set out the full list.

At our Pisa location you do not book: you walk in, pay at the kiosk and take a free locker. Availability is first-come on busy days, which is worth knowing if you arrive mid-morning in high season.

Piazza Giovan Battista Donati 2, 56126 Pisa, in the historical centre, a couple of hundred metres from Piazza dei Cavalieri and a few minutes from Borgo Stretto.

Roughly a ten to fifteen minute walk, through the old centre rather than around it.

About twenty minutes on foot across the Arno, or a short bus ride. The Tower is on the far side of us from the station, so leaving your bags here means you are already on the way.

Every day from 7:30 to 22:30.

Prices start at €3.50 and depend on the locker size and how long you stay. The current table is on our Pisa luggage storage page, which is where prices are kept up to date, so check there rather than relying on a figure quoted anywhere else.

Two. The small locker measures 40 x 45 x 60 cm and takes up to two cabin bags. The large locker measures 90 x 40 x 60 cm and takes several cabin bags or a couple of full-size suitcases. If you are unsure, take the large one, one price covers everything inside it.

By card at the kiosk in the store, when you start the deposit.

Not yet. Our Pisa location is walk-in: you turn up, use the kiosk, and you are done in a couple of minutes. Online booking is available at our Venice location.

At Pisa, opening the locker ends the deposit. When you enter your code and the door opens, take everything out: the locker cannot be closed again to carry on the same storage, and time paid but not used is not refunded. If you think you will need something during the day, keep it with you before you shut the door. Our Venice location works differently and does allow re-opening.

Your bags stay locked in the store overnight and you collect them when we open at 7:30. If you know you are running late, message us on WhatsApp rather than turning up after the door has closed.

Message or call us on WhatsApp at +39 388 936 3918 and we will sort it out with you there and then.

Yes. Our Pisa location is covered by the same insurance as our Venice store, and our terms of use set out what that cover applies to. It is still worth keeping passports, money and anything you cannot travel without on you rather than in a locker.

Up to 31 days. After that, under our terms of use, the contents are treated as abandoned unless you have agreed something with us in writing beforehand at info@selfluggagestorage.it.

Write to us at info@selfluggagestorage.it or message us on WhatsApp at +39 388 936 3918.