Lying at the junction of two rivers in central Italy, Pisa is a safe tourist destination with thriving arts and culture. The Campo dei Miracoli (“Field of Miracles”) hosts many important structures and is also the site of the Duomo Cathedral and the Camposanto cemetery.

Pisa is most famous for its leaning campanile, yet its other equally notable coups include its long maritime legacy dating to 1000 BC, its prized university and its status as the birthplace of the world’s greatest physicist and astronomer, Galileo Galilei.

The Pisans also created one of the most beautiful squares in the world in the Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles). Its key component is the famous Leaning Tower, whose layers of heavy marble were constructed on a shifting subsoil foundation that has been the bane of Pisan engineers for more than 800 years.

It seems that the tremulous soil underneath the Field of Miracles has exacted its price on the other buildings too, most notably San Michele dei Scalzi.

Other attractions of interest in Pisa include the Museo delle Sinopie, a museum containing a display of sketches from the frescoed cycle that decorated the walls of the Campo Santo cemetery and the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in which exhibits of arabesque panels and Corinthian capitals reveal the influences of Rome and Islam on Pisan architects.

The Museo Nazionale di San Matteo displays a range of Florentine art from the 12th through to the 17th centuries.

Since the 1980s, as the world bought pasta, wine, cheese and prosciutto by the freighter-full from Tuscany, a gastronomical tradition in chocolate has quietly swept through the region. Small factories devoted to shelling, grinding and melting cocoa beans have opened in the triangle from Florence to Pisa to Montecatini, giving rise to some of the purest chocolate in the world and the nickname Chocolate Valley.

“Tuscans are trained to talk about food, to taste food, study food,” Mr. DeBondt said. “I’m Dutch, and there’s no tradition of food in Holland. There’s only a tradition of boiled potatoes. I could never do this there.”

And until relatively recently, no one in Tuscany did chocolate. But what was once consigned as a precious treat at Christmas and Easter is now as commonplace as caffè macchiato. In the last decade, Italy’s annual chocolate consumption has doubled to nearly nine pounds a person, and last year, chocolate sales reached 350 million euros ($507.5 million at the current exchange rate of $1.45 to the euro).

The Antiques Market in Pisa is one of the most interesting in Italy because Pisa is home to plenty of furniture manufacturers, shops and restorers.

I think that everything that exists as a souvenir well, you can find it here.

A plaque above Caffe Settimelli signals that the house above was the house where Galileo Galilei was born. At the end of Via dei Mercanti, found in the quarter of San Francesco, there is an amazing spaghetteria, Le Bandierine.

Crossing Via delle Colonne you arrive to Borgo Stretto, one of the most beautiful streets in the city, with wonderful porticos. It is the heart of shopping in Pisa. You can then cross Mezzo Bridge and continue on to Corso Italia, another great shopping address in the city.

Each second weekend of the month, except July and August, the streets around Piazza dei Cavalieri becomes a great open market. The Antiques Market in Pisa is one of the most interesting in Italy because Pisa is home to plenty of furniture manufacturers, shops and restorers.

The selection on offer includes “Prosciutto Toscano” (the local version of what is commonly referred to in English as “Parma ham”), “Lardo di Colonnata” (a special type of bacon fat), and “Bistecca alla Fiorentina” (the famous Tuscan steak), as well as a wide array of fish-based starters and main courses.

Moreover, Ristorante Galileo also serves up excellent pizzas, cooked in a wood-fired oven. The restaurant’s wine cellar contains more than 400 fine wines, most of which are made in the Tuscany region

The ideal setting for the various regional and national specialties.

In the Osteria it is still possible to leave the table with a festive feeling, captured not only through a meal but also through the enjoyed experience. A place that unites, in a relaxing and warm atmosphere, the most sincere tuscan dishes and refined, always creatively interpreted gastronomical suggestions.

Old Bruno was a welcoming presence whose expertise guaranteed wayfarers a wholesome hot meal, as befitted the rustic appetite of the people of Pisa over half a century ago. In 1969 Piero Cei took over the establishment, but he had the brilliant intuition that its time-honored tradition should not be destroyed. On the contrary, he resolved to enrich its characteristics, ensuring that his menus would be even more firmly rooted in the traditions handed down from generation to generation. Local specialities such as tripe, hearty soup Pisan style, salt cod with leeks and stockfish were not abandoned but enhanced and rediscovered. His cuisine was designed to feature all the flavours of former times that only the white-haired citizens of Pisa could remember and appreciate. A humble cuisine made of simple homespun fare, but tasting so wonderful it can amaze even the most demanding palate.

The Old Trattoria “At Bruno’s” is today one of the most sought-after destinations for gourmets and connoisseurs of fine food, for whom Piero Cei is a quite exceptional host. Why not come and meet Piero Cei, and ask him about his special wizardry: what’s his secret?. “No secret”, he says. “I’ve just tried to maintain and enrich the tradition of Pisan cuisine. A cuisine that’s appreciated world-wide. What’s unique in our restaurant is that we pride ourselves on always offering the right dish for the right season, from mushrooms to fish”.