La Spezia Cruise Port, the Day Our Family of Four Skipped Pisa and Stayed in Town

Updated August 2026. First port day of our Legend of the Seas Mediterranean cruise. We paid our own way, as always.

Nearly every guide to the La Spezia cruise port tells you the same thing. Get out of La Spezia. Take the train to Pisa, book the bus to Florence, sprint through Cinque Terre, just don’t stay in town. We stayed in town, and it turned into one of the most relaxed port days our family of four has ever had. The honest confession is that we did not plan it that way. We had already done Pisa and Florence on last year’s Italy trip, so our big plan was to ride the tender over, stretch our legs, and head back to enjoy an empty ship. Instead we spent half the day out there, and I came home wishing we had budgeted more time for a city that every port guide told us to skip.

The Tender Ride Is the First Attraction

La Spezia is a tender port for a ship this size, which means Legend of the Seas anchors out in the gulf and boats shuttle you to shore. A lot of cruisers groan when they hear the word tender. Don’t. The ride in is a quick one, and it hands you views you cannot get any other way. The ship from the water, the city climbing into the green hills behind it, the whole Gulf of La Spezia spread out around you.

Here is the way I framed it for the kids. Back home in Chicago, a scenic water tour for the four of us runs well over 100 dollars. This was that boat ride, with better scenery, included in the cruise. The tender back to the ship even had an open bottom section where you could watch the water slide by under your feet. The four of us sat there hoping a fish would swim past, and not one did, but it turned a shuttle ride into a little adventure, which is about the best thing you can say about any form of cruise logistics.

The Pier Where the Whole City Slows Down

The tender drops you right at the waterfront, and everything in this article happened on foot from there. We started by walking out along the pier, and it set the tone for the whole day. It was Sunday morning and the locals were out doing exactly what you hope Italians do on a Sunday morning. Fishing off the edge, relaxing under umbrellas. At the end of the pier there is a squat red lighthouse, and behind it you get a clean view across the gulf to our ship at anchor, the only cruise ship in the gulf that day. We set up the little selfie stick that unfolds into a tripod and grabbed the family photo of the day.

A Waterfront Built for Wandering

From the pier we followed the shoreline, and this stretch is where La Spezia quietly shows off. There is a beautiful palm lined park running along the water, the Giardini Pubblici, with restaurants and vendors selling Italy souvenirs scattered along the way. You will pass the stone Monument to the Resistance and signs for MiglioBlu, the city’s nautical district. The signs call it the La Spezia Nautical District, and this stretch of coast builds a serious share of the world’s superyachts. Once you see what is tied up in that harbor you stop arguing with the billing. None of this is a checklist of attractions. It is a waterfront that rewards slow walking, which is exactly what you want on a port day.

Via del Prione, Exactly What You Picture When You Picture Italy

A few blocks in from the water you hit Via del Prione, the main pedestrian street, and this is where the town wins you over. Tall shuttered buildings in yellows and pinks, laundry on balconies, cafe tables spilling into the street. It is exactly what you would picture if someone said the word Italy to you.

Because it was Sunday, some of the shops were closed, but most of the restaurants were open and doing brisk business. Honestly, the quieter street felt like a feature, not a bug. Less shopping, more Italy.

We made one food stop, and it was a small one on purpose. One cup of gelato from Gelateria Artigianale on Piazza Garibaldi, which came to 4.70 dollars on the card. Josh ordered it, and the other three of us kept borrowing his spoon until it was gone. There was a lot of good looking food in the restaurant windows along the way, and skipping it was not easy. If your ship leaves later in the evening, a long lunch on Via del Prione would be the move.

The Side Streets Go Up, So We Went Up

Here is the thing the port guides never mention. Walk a few blocks back from the main drag and the streets start to climb, because the whole back half of La Spezia is stacked into the hills. Standing at the bottom, looking up at staircases disappearing between buildings, we decided to turn the walk into an adventure and just go up one.

It was a climb. Nobody was counting, but my legs put it at fifteen plus stories of stairs and ramps, and I am sticking with that number. Josh and Emily were not shy about telling me what they thought of my decision on the way up. Then we reached the top, the whole city and the gulf opened up below us, and both kids came around on the spot. Everyone agreed the climb had been a good idea, which is as close to a unanimous family verdict as we get.

Up top we meandered through the residential neighborhood, which is a side of Italy a cruise excursion will never show you. Old stone archways with iron gates, staircases numbered like street addresses, scooters parked on impossible slopes. What stopped the kids in their tracks was realizing that people actually live in the buildings along these stairs, with front doors you can only reach by climbing up or down from the road. Josh and Emily spent a good stretch of the walk trying to work out how anyone gets groceries home. The four of us had the streets mostly to ourselves.

Castello San Giorgio and the Sideways Elevator

Our wandering brought us to the top of the old town, where Castello San Giorgio sits watching over the gulf. It is an old Genoese fort that now houses the city’s archaeological museum. We did not budget time to go inside, but the view from the terrace outside justifies the climb on its own. Admission is around 6 EUR for adults if you do want the museum. It is closed on Mondays, and on days when cruise ships are in port it stays open straight through until 5 pm. Rooftops, the harbor, the hills across the gulf, and our ship sitting out on the water.

And here is the tip that saves your legs. You do not have to climb at all. There is a free public elevator from the main street level, connected to a second elevator that runs sideways up the slope of the hill, and it delivers you right to the castle entrance. Since the first of August it runs every day, around the clock. A sideways elevator was not on my Italy bingo card, and it might be the single most family friendly piece of infrastructure in town. Full honesty, we did not ride it. From what we saw at the platform it is on the small side and the people waiting had been waiting a while, so budget a few extra minutes for it. We took the stairs because for us the climb was part of the day, but if getting to the view is the goal, take it up and wander down.

Wander down is what we did, through switchback streets and staircases, with the sea popping into view between buildings the whole way. If you only remember one thing from this article, make it this. The views from the top of La Spezia, with the whole gulf and our ship laid out below, were the best thing we found all day, and they cost nothing.

Should You Skip Pisa and Florence for La Spezia?

Let me be fair about this, because the answer depends on your family. If you have never seen the Leaning Tower or the Duomo, go. Pisa is about forty minutes away on a fast train, or an hour and a quarter on a regional, and very doable, and we wrote up our own Pisa visit from last year’s trip. Florence is the harder sell. It is a little under two hours each way on the fastest trains and nearer two and a half on everything else, so you are looking at four to five hours of your port day spent in transit before you have seen a single statue.

But if you have already done the big two, or you simply do not feel like turning a vacation day into a commute, La Spezia itself is a legitimately good day. And there is a bonus nobody talks about. We were back on board by about three thirty, and the ship was quiet. We claimed the same deck chairs we had on boarding day, less than a quarter of the loungers were taken, and it stayed that way through most of the afternoon, even after sail away. Josh rode the water slides a few times with almost no line, after waiting close to an hour for a single ride on a sea day earlier in the cruise, and he was very happy about the trade. The band played to a thin crowd, and while the main pool was closed for cleaning that afternoon, even the hot tubs had room to spare. The ship did not sail until after six, so we had hours of that quiet. Half a day in a real Italian town plus half a day on an uncrowded ship is a trade I will take every time.

Can You Explore La Spezia Cruise Port on Foot?

If your ship tenders, yes, completely. You land at the waterfront and the pier, gardens, Via del Prione, and even the castle are all walkable from there, with no taxi and no tour bus needed. Ships that berth instead dock at Molo Garibaldi, which is a working cargo terminal you cannot walk out of, but the free port shuttle drops you at the cruise terminal and it is walkable from there. Just be prepared for real walking, and a lot of stairs if you explore the hills the way we did. Comfortable shoes are not optional, and the sideways elevator is there for anyone in the family who wants the views without the climb.

If anyone in your group would rather see the city without the walking, there is also a little tourist train that loops through town, one of those choo choo style trains on wheels, with multiple stops along the route. Think hop on hop off bus, just smaller and cuter. We saw it pass and stuck with walking, because for us the walking was the point. This day was never about how much we could fit in. It was about taking our time, wandering the side streets, hanging out, and photographing the graffiti and odd corners that make a town feel real. My phone put us at nearly twenty thousand steps by the end of it, and mission accomplished. But if anyone in your family has leg or mobility issues, the free elevator pair is the genuinely step free route to the top of town, and the train covers the flat parts.

Do You Need a Shore Excursion in La Spezia?

No. This is one of the easiest do it yourself ports we have visited. The town explores itself on foot, and if you want to go farther, the train station puts you in Riomaggiore, the closest Cinque Terre village, in under ten minutes, with the farther villages twenty to thirty. Pisa is forty minutes to an hour and a quarter depending on whether you catch a fast train or a regional, and Florence is two hours or more. Budget another twenty five minutes to walk to the station from the port. The reasons to book the ship’s excursion are the guarantee that the ship waits for you and priority tender tickets, and the first one matters most on the long Florence run.

The Verdict