Pisa is a student city, and student cities are cheap. Outside Piazza dei Miracoli the entry fees collapse: free squares, a free Palazzo Blu collection, €4 botanical gardens and market lunches under €6 a head.
Vasari's 1560s square for the Knights of St Stephen, with the sgraffito-covered Palazzo della Carovana (now the Scuola Normale) and the Torre della Muda of Dante's Count Ugolino. Open air, unticketed, free at all hours.
A 1230 Pisan Gothic jewel box the size of a chapel, encrusted with tabernacles and hauled brick by brick up the embankment in 1871 to escape flooding. Opening hours are short and seasonal, roughly 10:00-13:30 plus afternoons.
Haring's last public work, painted in June 1989 on the rear wall of Sant'Antonio Abate: 30 interlocking figures across 180 square metres, finished months before he died. Permanently visible on a public street, no ticket, no gate.
A cobalt-blue palazzo on the Arno whose permanent floors of Pisan painting and period rooms are free; only the touring blockbuster exhibitions charge. Typically open until 19:00 on weekdays and 20:00 at weekends.
The arcaded produce market in Piazza delle Vettovaglie, running mornings Monday to Saturday and winding down by 13:30. Tomatoes, pecorino, olives and bread for a picnic assembled here run well under a restaurant cover charge.
A courtyard institution off Vicolo del Monte serving cecina, the baked chickpea-flour flatbread, at roughly €2.50 a slice, plus stuffed focaccine and spuma soft drink. Cash-friendly, closed Sundays, packed with Pisan students at lunch.
Lungarno Pacinotti 23, a rigorously seasonal gelateria using Sicilian pistachio and fresh fruit rather than pastes; a cone starts around €3 and the bench outside faces the Arno. Open late in summer, often until midnight.
Via Case Dipinte 6, a Pisan craft brewpub where unfiltered house beers pour cheaper than aperitivo cocktails on the Lungarno and the crowd is overwhelmingly local and student-aged rather than day-trip traffic.
Roughly 3 km of restored 12th-century city wall, walkable at about 11 m up, with the Torre Santa Maria entrance giving an over-the-rooftops angle on the Leaning Tower that no ground-level photo can match.
Founded in 1544 by Luca Ghini, the oldest university botanical garden in the world, with magnolias planted in the 1780s and a shaded lily pond. Entry runs about €4, and the benches make it a legitimate picnic venue.
A former royal estate of umbrella pines, dunes and canals stretching to the sea, free to enter on foot or by bike and reached by city bus. Waymarked trails run from Cascine Vecchie towards the Arno mouth and the coastal dunes.
A public park built inside a 15th-century Sangallo bastion at the eastern end of the Arno, with ramparts you can climb for a low, uncrowded view back along the river. Free, gated at dusk, and used mostly by residents.