Complimentary bus pickup: The Il Ciocco Hotel provides a complimentary bus pickup service from Pisa on July 2. There will be three busses scheduled as follows:

Bus 1 leaves Pisa Airport at 15:00, Pisa Centrale (railway station) at 15:15

Bus 2 leaves Pisa Airport at 19:00, Pisa Centrale (railway station) at 19:15

Bus 3 leaves Pisa Airport at 22:30, Pisa Centrale (railway station) at 22:45

The first bus will arrive at Pisa Airport at 14:00. An Il Ciocco hostess will be at the airport until 19:00 (between the first and the second departure.) Look for the Il Ciocco logo on the bus.

Local train station: Barga-Gallicano (some connections through Lucca). You can find detailed European railway schedule information here. For your convenience, here is a page with the afternoon/evening arrival schedule at Barga-Gallicano. From there it is a 10-minute and (approximately) 20,000 lira taxi ride to Il Ciocco. Trains to Barga-Gallicano may be taken from either Pisa or Lucca. If you take it from Pisa, recheck after you are on the train that it actually goes to Barga-Gallicano. It has happened to me that, after being told at Pisa Centrale that the train did go to Barga-Gallicano, I actually had to change in Lucca. If you are coming from Florence (Firenze), it is usually faster to take the hourly express train nonstop to Pisa and change there, even though you pass by Lucca. The train fare from Pisa to Barga-Gallicano is quite low - about 3000 lira is my best recollection. The journey from Lucca to Barga-Gallicano is v-e-r-y slow but also very picturesque. I believe that in July the massive sunflowers will be in full bloom, and the train winds up the hills passing the beautiful sunflower fields and many small towns. One additional warning though - the train is not air-conditioned. It is not usually very hot in the Tuscan hills, but that can happen. At the (very small) Barga-Gallicano station you might have to go into the snack bar that is adjacent. The taxi driver sometimes doubles as the bartender. You can also telephone Il Ciocco (+39-0583-719471). If you do so in advance, after you know what time your train is scheduled to arrive, they should be able to have a taxi waiting. If you are not able to make these arrangements in Italian, try to double check that the person you are speaking to understands what you want. Buon viaggio!

Driving: Please consult the Il Ciocco Web site for a map with local directions.

Pisa hotels: If you arrive early and plan to spend some time in Pisa, you may wish to consult this list of hotels in Pisa.

A taxi from Barga-Gallicano station costs about 20,000 lira. One from Pisa or Florence costs about 200,000 lira. You can check up on current international exchange rates here.