Early flights from Pisa to the UK are all very well if the airfare is truly cut-price, if you have a private means of getting to the aerodrome and, most important, if you can bear to shift yourself from the snug warmth of your bed at an unearthly early hour. Otherwise, why not take a train to Pisa the day before your journey, check into a place near the airport and enjoy more of the inexhaustible delights this lively city can offer?
My favourite check-in place is Pisa Hostel in Via Corridoni just 6 minutes from the railway station and a brisk 15 minutes walk to the Galileo ‘s departure lounge. If you are a couple (or two couples) you can have your own room; otherwise you can share a four-bunk-beds and en-suite bathroom with others.
The place is truly fun. You can have a great eat-as-much-as-you-like buffet for Euros 8, get the best scrambled eggs in Tuscany at 4am before walking across to your flight, have a jam session on the musical instruments provided for guests, laze in the garden, meet and exchange notes with other world travellers and, most important, have friendly and helpful staff who will bend backwards to make your shortest stay a pleasant one. And all this accommodation for euros 13 a night!

Of course, if you still crave for your boutique hotel….

My afternoon walk around Pisa took me to the new fortress whose otherwise delightful gardens were turned into a small lake thanks to the deluge of rain we’ve been having.

I crossed the Arno, on the way passing the bombed-out wreck of a palazzo where in 1821 Shelley wrote his elegy ‘Adonais’ on hearing of the death of his contemporary Keats; a situation which is the subject of a friend’s, David Reid, recent poem.

On the Arno’s northern bank I visited my private museum which includes a collection of some of the most superb Pisan paintings and statuary. Or so it seemed my own private museum to me. For three hours there were no hoards of tourists to obstruct my views, no peering guards, no interference to the meditative pleasure of gazing on some of the most exquisite women, the most animated scenes, the noblest religious representations by artists which included greats like the Pisano family and even a Masaccio, all beautifully presented in the old convent of San Matteo.

When I told the entrance staff how much I enjoyed my visit but was surprised that I was the only visitor he replied ‘that’s what they all say. But isn’t it better like this? You can truly enjoy the beauties around you without the distraction of all those tourists like you get in the Uffizi.’ I had to agree!
I walked along the Lungo Arno which I find quite as beautiful, if not more than Florence’s, especially when a transcendent sunset was colouring it.

I began to feel peckish and so headed for my favourite Chinese restaurant near the Palazzo Blu. The menu is well translated into Italian so that my favourite Xiaolonbao became ‘ravioli al vapore’. They were here just as good as the ones we had tasted at Shanghai’s Nanxiang Bun shop.
The spaghetti with Beijing sauce were scrumptious with their spring roll additions, and surprisingly al dente. Again, I knew it was a good place to come to eat by the preponderance of young Chinese customers and the very cordial service.

Then it was a walk back to the Pisa Hostel via the animated pedestrianised Corso Italia, to the dreaded 4 am wake-up alleviated by those charmingly served delicious scrambled eggs.

I returned to the Great Wen, however, in time for a delicious fish n chip lunch and surprisingly sunny, though windy, weather.