Everyone always thinks they’ve “done” Pisa. They’ve gawped at the tower and done a photo, usually declaring the place boring—uninteresting beyond the wonky architecture—before moving on to wider Tuscany. At the shooting gallery of the tower, a sea of individuals compete for one perfect image of themselves. Couples test their relationships while seeking the ideal perspective, true originals bring props, while others hold their arms aloft like they’re at a Nuremberg rally. Out of shot is a multicultural student city, with a lively, revolutionary energy.

We—me and my wife, Pel—live in the Tuscan countryside, growing food and flowers, surrounded by chestnut-covered mountains, trout-filled rivers and maniacs in soiled Fiat Puntos. For us, Pisa is the airport city, the first and last place we take visitors. It’s also where I stock up on CBD weed (low in the psychoactive THC, and technically legal) and is a fine, fine city to get absolutely blasted in. There are museums somewhere I imagine, the churches are definitely good, but the bars have it: the lure for the thirsty.

It’d been one of those mythical brilliant summers. We’d spent time in cold, clear mountain water while a heat wave scorched the land, and we drank more wine from boxes than at any other point in our lives. At its peak we’d had ten guests on a week-long floristry course, along with our own crew. Pel had taught and I had catered. We still had Charlie, my catering partner, but his time was almost up—one last blast around Pisa beckoned.

At one point that summer I had Charlie cooking a barbeque in almost 40°C heat, so I owed him a few very cold lagers. We checked into a rough room on the high street and went straight out for a sandwich. “Eating is cheating” is a mantra for Tories; sample the snacks and wade into the birra with confidence. A panino from the tiny I Porci Comodi on Via L’Arancio is a solid foundation for success. Big baguettes stuffed with the best of the region—porchetta, pecorino, salsa verde. That day we took on a tagliere: a board of meats and cheese, and sat out in the square outside to feast and gawp.

““‘Eating is cheating’ is a mantra for Tories; sample the snacks and wade into the birra with confidence.””

What we didn’t know was that it was a public holiday: Ferragosto, Assumption Day—the day the good Lord took the body of Mary into Heaven for one last laugh at poor old Joseph. It turned out this holiday is very well observed so very little else was open. We improvised with street cans and looked for ways to pass time until the weed man’s shop opened. Pisa is a tiny, unspectacular city that hides its beauty in the details.

***

There are plenty of bars for a glass of Moretti at any time but you have to wait until the evening for the best spots to open. La Torre Del Luppolo, a fine bar and bottle shop is tucked down the tiny Via Renato Fucini. We were sad when the internet told us it would be closed today, but perhaps we’d already had the best of it that summer. Pel and I had come into Pisa for a little holiday earlier in the year, at a time when everything was actually open.

Turning into the street on that previous visit we met a big crowd drinking beers in clusters, gesturing and jabbering. A tap takeover had broken out: Brasserie Della Fonte were in town to deliver the goods and people were rightly excited—this farm-based brewery from down near Siena make an American Pale you could drink all day, but it’s dangerous at 6%. The beer selection was hit after hit from the pale to the porter, and a full aperitivo buffet was under attack in the back room. It was a decadent selection from the adjacent restaurant, Peperosa, including a perfect rigatoni al ragu.

La Torre Del Luppolo, The Tower of Hops, is a great neighbourhood bar. It’s an all-local after-work spot for those who like well-flavoured liquids. Owned by pals Alessandro and Francesco, it’s friendly and fun. The bar is tiny so people spill onto the cramped street outside, drinking between parked cars and getting smoothed out on the kerb among the hash smoke.

Previously, we’d sat in the street here for beers among the jabber and buzzing mopeds. We’d been in town to see our guy and had scored a little nug of some homegrown after a long drought. We bought some papers and tips from a street seller and felt soothed and stocked. Too comfortable, we eventually realised we had to shift for the last train, but a minute into our power-walk I realised the weed was gone. Having already tested it in the park earlier that day, I realised it had maybe been too effective.

Weed under 0.2% THC is technically legal in Italy so there are various shops selling delicious but ineffective bud. There’s the chain of Amsterdam Cannabis shops that sell terrible stuff, and independent spots that stock accurately-bred weed that claims to only induce the calming effects. I find it’s good for cutting out tobacco in joints—padding them out with this non-psychoactive weed—to help cushion the blow of the mind-bending turbo skunk. Right-wing politicians like Matteo Salvini want to close the door that has opened on the decriminalisation of marijuana, but his power has slipped away. It’s a grey area though, so probably illegal to go about bunning all over the place.

So there’d be no torre this time, and the holiday hours for most places weren’t good reading. Luckily, my CBD man was open. We staked out the shop for hours, drinking Moretti in a café, playing Shut The Box, and taking each other’s picture. The guy is always well stocked with fine “light” weed—I sniff around for something that smells tropical in the sample pots on the counter. He was disappointed in my terrible Italian but I was getting some work done.

When I told the guy I needed something for my mista, he took my signal that I needed something serious. He sorted us a pre-ground mix I had confidence in and then, like a magic trick, he pulled out a fine nug of crunchy bud—on the house too. We smiled off out of there not believing our luck—the guy had the goods! We were planning some CBD smokes to have a facsimile good time, but here was this man, looking after us like a loving, stoned uncle.

***

We cut back into the city for L’Estrusco, a little pub on the Piazza Martiri della libertà, a park square on the student side of town. L’Estrusco is a proper pub, with dark wood, cask ale, football on the telly and fried things on the menu. There, Marco and Brenda serve beers that are mostly mainly local and always Italian. We needed lagers, full refreshment, and there was always Tipopils from Birrificio Italiano on tap, which swirls in like water down a plughole. Here you can sit outside and watch the action in the park. The dog walkers, the groups of students, the various beggars and street sellers.

But of course, L’Estrusco was closed. Their fine flat-priced beers would have to wait for another time. We’d be back one day to make moves on the amiable menu, to put together a selection of snackettos. There are very few onion rings and chicken wings in the world that aren’t palatable, it’s all about how bad you feel during and afterwards. These snacks look after you, give you the energy for one more. By this logic, we had a terrible burger in a little café and headed to the river to work on the weed.

““I’m not saying don’t go to the Tower, I’m just saying don’t do it sober.””

For a city so popular, so famous, it can be very easy to find some peace in Pisa. Not just on the days of the year when almost everything closes, but on busy summer days too. Leave the main high street and find parks like San Silvestro in the shadow of the city wall, or twist into backstreets and find top boozers like Orzo Bruno, the OG beer bar of the city. We got ourselves down on the river bank, looking into the murky water and feeling the full glow of a good time. It could’ve been the bud or the beer but I felt the rare, yet certain feeling that things were ok.

Later, we stood in a cinematic glow on the Ponte Di Mezzo—looking west at the melting sun with the moon already in the sky to the east. I felt like I’d been buttered. It was time to stop talking and take photos, give everyone a rest. We’d been waiting for La Staffetta to open all day—a top taproom right on the Arno River. The crowd spill from the outside seating and merge with the people sat on the wall over the river, observing the sunset, smoking and talking. This is the place to relax and meet people—the beer is usually perfect too, whether it’s their own beer, brewed in house, or from a wisely-curated selection.

When I see Martena and Peter’s faces there I know I’m having a good time. Martena has been with La Staffetta since the bar opened and can always be relied upon to tell us what to drink. We were thirsty, and she pointed to Slurp, from Turin’s Birrificio Brasseria Soralama. The beer of the summer had come at last—we quickly got addicted to this dry-hopped pils, seeking constant refreshment for our jabber-dry throats. Martena knew what was coming every time: 3 Slurps, and snacks!

Apparently well trusted, we remained verbal throughout a €100+ bar tab, making an English friend and blasting into the night, smoking joints on the river wall and feeling a warm glow, as advertised. It was lucky Sud, an amaro hotspot, wasn’t open or we could’ve really challenged ourselves. Charlie ended up staying up all night with our new pal getting his back scratched after we’d gone for one more in a rowdy sports bar, Bazeel. It was the full British experience of eating tepid kebabs and knocking lagers all over patio furniture.

By the morning we were fully incapacitated and got the full tourist treatment. I had acid swilling about, all holes uncertain, memory patchy as Chaplin’s trousers. We got overcharged for coffees and shite sandwiches but were grateful for the seat. We tried to balance the books from the night before,

“‘Hey 100 Euros is only like twenty beers, between us it’s not too bad.”’ It was time to gather ourselves and Charlie, he had a plane to catch.

Pel and I sloped back to the mountains. It’s easy to brush off hangovers in the soft environment of the Garfagnana, away from the people who saw you piss on your shoes or heard you say something bang out of order. We were back on the wine by the evening, like gamblers shrugging off a loss. Italy has great drinking infrastructure—nobody thinks you have a problem here, where old boys silently smooth off a glass of frizzante at any time of the morning and the coffee gets “corrected” with grappa.

Anyway—I’m not saying don’t go to the Tower, I’m just saying don’t do it sober.