Shore Excursion from La Spezia: Pisa Street Food and City Highlights Tour

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Private shore excursion from La Spezia cruise port to Pisa — guided street food walking tour with cecina, schiacciata, pappa al pomodoro, cantucci and Vin Santo, private transport included

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Shore Excursion from La Spezia to Pisa — Street Food, City Highlights, Transport Included

La Spezia cruise port sits less than an hour from one of the most famous cities in Italy — and one of the most underrated for food. This private excursion picks you up directly from the port and brings you into Pisa for a guided street food walking tour of the city: the medieval market square, the small bakery where locals queue for cecina straight from a copper pan, the arcaded streets of Borgo Stretto, the riverside promenades, and the view of Piazza dei Miracoli that arrives unexpectedly at the end of a narrow lane.

Transport from La Spezia is included in both directions, so there is nothing to organise. You step off the ship, we collect you, and you are back at the port well before departure.

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Tour Details

• Starting point: La Spezia cruise port (pickup included)
• Duration: Full half-day — approximately 5 to 6 hours including travel
• Travel time: Approximately 50 to 60 minutes each way from La Spezia to Pisa
• Group size: Private — exclusively for your group
• Language: English
• Transport: Included — pickup and drop-off at La Spezia cruise port

What’s Included

• Private transport from La Spezia cruise port to Pisa and back
• English-speaking guide throughout
• Cecina and schiacciata tasting at a historic local bakery
• Pappa al pomodoro — traditional Tuscan tomato and bread soup with local wine
• Local cold cuts — finocchiona (fennel salami), Tuscan prosciutto DOP, aged pecorino
• Cantucci with Vin Santo — the classic Tuscan dessert pairing
• Gelato artigianale from a local gelateria

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The Journey from La Spezia

Your guide meets you at the cruise terminal and the drive to Pisa takes approximately 50 to 60 minutes through the Ligurian hills and into Tuscany. The landscape changes as you cross the regional border — denser inland forest, broader valleys, and the flat coastal plain of the Arno opening up as you approach the city.

We arrive in Pisa in time to start the food tour at the heart of the city, with the full morning ahead.

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What You Will Eat

Cecina — The One Food That Defines Pisa

Cecina is a thin golden pancake made from chickpea flour, water, olive oil, and salt — nothing else. It is baked in wide copper pans in a fierce oven until the edges crisp and the centre stays soft. You eat it folded in paper, standing at the counter or in the street, straight from the bakery.

In Pisa, the place for cecina is Il Montino — a small, plain bakery near Piazza delle Vettovaglie that has been selling cecina and schiacciata for decades. The queue at lunchtime tells you everything. The classic order is schiacciata stuffed with warm cecina: two things that cost almost nothing and taste extraordinary together.

The same dish goes by different names along this coast — farinata in Liguria, torta di ceci in La Spezia. In Pisa it is simply cecina, and Pisans are quite particular about that.

Piazza delle Vettovaglie — The Daily Market

Piazza delle Vettovaglie is Pisa’s main food market — a colonnaded medieval square a few minutes from the Arno that has been selling produce since the 13th century. The morning market brings local vendors: olive oil from the Pisan hills, seasonal vegetables, fresh bread, charcuterie, and cheese.

The piazza is also ringed with bars and trattorie of the unpretentious kind — the sort of place where a glass of house red and a plate of cold cuts costs four euros and is eaten at a plastic table by students, market traders, and retired professors side by side. This is the real centre of Pisan food life, not the souvenir-lined streets near the tower.

Pappa al Pomodoro

Pappa al pomodoro is Tuscany’s thick tomato and bread soup: stale unsalted Tuscan bread soaked in slow-cooked tomatoes with garlic, basil, and olive oil until the bread absorbs everything and the result is dense, savoury, and deeply comforting. Served warm in winter and at room temperature in summer.

Visiting La Spezia or the Cinque Terre?
Escape the crowds with our truffle hunt & gourmet truffle lunch & tasting in Lunigiana — a perfect shore excursion from La Spezia.

This is peasant food in the best sense — designed to use up stale bread and summer tomatoes, and one of the defining tastes of Tuscan cooking. We taste it with a glass of local wine.

Finocchiona, Tuscan Prosciutto, and Aged Pecorino

Finocchiona is a soft Tuscan salami flavoured with fennel seeds — fragrant, yielding, and nothing like the firmer salamis of Emilia-Romagna further north. Tuscan prosciutto DOP is cured with black pepper and local herbs; less sweet than Parma, more savoury and direct. Both are served on fresh schiacciata with aged pecorino, Tuscany’s sheep’s milk cheese.

Cantucci and Vin Santo

Cantucci are twice-baked almond biscuits — dry, crunchy, packed with whole almonds. You dunk them into Vin Santo, the amber Tuscan dessert wine made from partially dried Trebbiano and Malvasia grapes and aged in small chestnut barrels. The biscuit softens, soaks up the wine, and dissolves. This is one of those combinations that has to be eaten to be understood.

Gelato Artigianale

We finish at a local artisan gelateria — the kind that makes its gelato on the premises and uses seasonal ingredients. The guide will take you to their favourite and you choose.

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What You Will See

• Piazza dei Miracoli — the Leaning Tower, Cathedral, and Baptistery. Your guide explains the architectural and political story behind one of Italy’s most unusual public spaces.
• Piazza delle Vettovaglie — the 13th-century covered market square and the social heart of the city.
• Borgo Stretto — the main medieval arcade running through the historic centre, lined with historic shops, bars, and pasticcerie.
• Lungarni — the riverside promenades along the Arno, with views of the historic palazzi that line the water.
• Medieval back streets — the lanes between the river and the tower that almost no visitor walks down.

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Book This Shore Excursion

To check availability, confirm your port arrival time, or ask any questions, get in touch — we typically reply within a few hours.

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