The Arena Garibaldi is the home of Pisa, a compact and characterful ground barely a few minutes' walk from the Leaning Tower, reconfigured to hold a little over 12,000 for the club's return to Serie A in 2025 after a 34-year absence. Demand for Arena Garibaldi tickets has jumped with that promotion, because a small ground and a stream of famous visitors such as Inter, Napoli and Roma mean the seats sell out quickly and supply is tight. Understanding that squeeze is the first step to getting into one of Italian football's most atmospheric small grounds. 1BoxOffice is a verified secondary marketplace established in 2006, with seat-level detail at checkout and a 150% money-back guarantee if a ticket fails to grant entry on matchday.
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This guide is written for the supporter making the trip, not the browser. It covers how to reach the ground from Pisa's stations and the Tower, how the curve and tribune are arranged, where away fans sit, the name-linked tickets and security that catch out first-time visitors to Italy, the bars of the old town, and the long history of a club that once brought big names to Tuscany. By the end you should know how your matchday will run.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Arena Garibaldi, Stadio Romeo Anconetani (commercially the Cetilar Arena) |
| Address | Via Antonio Cei, Pisa, Italy |
| Capacity | Around 12,500 after the reconfiguration for Serie A |
| Opened | 1919 |
| Surface | Natural grass |
| Home Club | Pisa Sporting Club |
| Owner | Municipality of Pisa |
| Record Attendance | 21,729 (Italy v Yugoslavia, September 1987) |
| Nearest Station | Pisa San Rossore, a short walk from the ground |
| Nearest Landmark | The Leaning Tower, a few minutes on foot |
The Arena Garibaldi has one great advantage over almost every other ground in this guide: it sits in the heart of a compact, walkable city, right beside the Piazza dei Miracoli and the Leaning Tower. That makes it one of the easiest stadiums in Europe to reach on foot, and it turns a matchday into a proper city visit. Pisa is small, so most journeys are short.
From the Leaning Tower and the Piazza dei Miracoli, the ground is only a few minutes' walk to the east, which is a rare thing in modern football. From the main shopping streets and the Arno riverfront in the centre it is a flat fifteen to twenty-minute stroll. For anyone staying in central Pisa, walking is the obvious and most enjoyable way to the match.
Pisa has two useful stations. Pisa San Rossore is the closest, a short walk from the Tower and the ground, and handy if you are arriving from along the coast. Pisa Centrale, the main station, sits on the south side of the city about two kilometres away, from where you can walk in around twenty-five minutes or take a bus towards the Tower. Trains link Pisa with Florence, Lucca and the coast, so a rail day trip to a match is easy.
Local buses run from Pisa Centrale towards the Leaning Tower area, and the LAM Rossa route is the most useful for reaching the north side of the city near the ground. Buy your ticket before boarding and validate it on board. For most visitors staying centrally, though, the walk is quicker than working out the bus.
Pisa International Airport, named after Galileo Galilei, is barely three kilometres from the centre and one of the closest airports to any ground in Europe. The PisaMover automated shuttle links the airport with Pisa Centrale in about five minutes, from where the ground is a short walk or bus ride. A taxi from the airport to the centre takes only a few minutes. This closeness makes Pisa an unusually easy fly-in matchday, and it means a supporter can land, watch a Serie A game and see one of the wonders of the medieval world all within the same afternoon, which very few grounds anywhere can offer.
Driving into central Pisa is not advised. The old town has restricted traffic zones that are camera-enforced, parking is limited around the ground, and the compact streets fill on matchday. If you must drive, use a car park on the edge of the centre and walk in. Given how walkable the city is, the car is more trouble than it is worth here.
Parking is tight and central Pisa is not built for it. The historic centre has limited-traffic zones monitored by cameras, and casual parking near the ground on matchday is difficult and often restricted. The practical approach is to use one of the peripheral car parks, such as those near Pisa Centrale or on the ring road, and walk into the centre. For visitors arriving by train or plane, there is no need to drive at all, which is one of the pleasures of a Pisa away trip.
The Arena Garibaldi is an old-fashioned Italian ground of curves and tribunes rather than a modern bowl, and it has been reshaped for Serie A while keeping its character. It is tight, close to the pitch and loud when full, and the works around the Serie A return have altered some sections, so exact layouts can change between seasons. The main areas each have their own feel.
The Curva Nord is the home of the Pisa ultras and the most boisterous part of the ground, generating the colour, flags and noise that give the stadium its atmosphere. This is the section to target if you want to be among the most committed home supporters, though it is also the most intense and the hardest to reach on resale.
The Curva Sud sits behind the opposite goal and has been reworked as part of the Serie A upgrades, with part of it given over to the visiting-supporter section. It has at times been partially closed during construction, so its use varies by fixture. On a full matchday it adds to the noise from the other end.
The long sides hold the seated tribune areas, including the covered Tribuna and the Gradinata, which offer the calmest setting and the best side-on view of the pitch. These are the higher-priced seats and the choice for neutrals and families who want a clear view of the game rather than the intensity of the curve. Facilities here are more comfortable than in the ends.
Away supporters are allocated a designated sector, generally within the Curva Sud end, with the size set for each fixture and subject to the ongoing works. Family and quieter seating is found in the tribune areas away from the ultras. As an old ground undergoing phased modernisation, accessibility provision is more limited than at a new stadium, though accessible spaces are available. Supporters with access requirements should contact the club directly before the match to confirm what is available and to arrange seating, since the works can change the layout from one fixture to the next.
The table below matches a section to what you want from the day.
| Priority | Recommended Sections |
|---|---|
| Atmosphere | Curva Nord, behind the goal |
| Tactical overview | Tribuna, central rows |
| Close to pitch | Front rows of the Gradinata |
| Families | Tribune areas away from the curve (confirm age rule at purchase) |
| Budget-friendly | Gradinata and the upper curve rows |
| Away fans | Designated sector in the Curva Sud end |
| Accessibility | Accessible spaces by arrangement with the club |
Pisa has a mild Tuscan climate, with warm, dry summers and mild but wet winters. An early-season or late-season fixture can be hot in an exposed seat, so sun protection is worth having, while the autumn and winter months bring the wettest weather off the coast. The covered Tribuna offers the best shelter from rain, while the open curves and gradinata catch the weather, so those sections are the ones to think about in a downpour. For a winter evening a light jacket is usually enough, as it rarely gets truly cold this close to the sea.
Italian grounds run firm security and the sensible approach is to travel light. Large bags and rucksacks are best left at your accommodation, since oversized bags are refused and there is no guarantee of a bag store at an old ground like this. Expect a search and a bag check at the entrance. Prohibited items include glass bottles, cans, pyrotechnics and flares, weapons and any object judged dangerous, along with banners carrying offensive or political content. Because the exact permitted bag size is set out in the club's matchday regulations and can change, check the current guidance before you travel and arrive early to clear the search.
One of the joys of a Pisa match is that the ground is in the middle of a lovely Tuscan city, so the food and drink is the food and drink of the old town rather than a retail park. The compact centre means you are never far from a bar or a restaurant before or after the game.
Via San Martino, in the old town south of the Arno, has a well-known row of bars that are popular before a match and a good place to gather. The streets around Borgo Stretto and the Arno riverfront also have plenty of cafes and bars. Because Pisa is small and the atmosphere relaxed, home and away supporters tend to use the same central spots before heading to the ground, and mixing beforehand is normal and good-natured.
Pisa is a proper Tuscan food city, so the best plan is to eat in the centre before the match. Local specialities include cecina, a chickpea flatbread, and the hearty Tuscan dishes of the region, all easy to find around the market and the old town at reasonable prices. Inside the ground the catering is simple, with kiosks selling snacks and drinks, and payment is increasingly by card. For a memorable pre-match meal, the trattorias of central Pisa are the draw.
One rule catches out first-time visitors to Italy: tickets are name-linked, so the name on the ticket should match the person using it and identification can be checked at the entrance. Buy accordingly and travel with your ID. Tickets are increasingly issued digitally, so load the barcode in your phone wallet or the ticketing app before you reach the turnstile, charge your phone and turn the screen brightness up, since a saved screenshot can fail to scan when a barcode refreshes. Gates open ahead of kick-off, and with a security search and name checks the queues build early on a big night, so aim to arrive in good time rather than close to kick-off.
Leaving is straightforward because the ground is central and the city is small, so most supporters are only a short walk from where they are staying or heading.
Walking is the simplest exit. From the ground it is only a few minutes back to the Tower and fifteen to twenty minutes into the heart of the old town, so most supporters simply walk off into the city after the whistle. The compact centre spreads the crowd quickly.
Pisa San Rossore is the nearest station for a quick departure along the coast, while Pisa Centrale handles the main lines to Florence, Lucca and beyond, reached by a short walk or a bus from near the Tower. Trains are busier straight after a match, so allow a little time if you are connecting onwards the same evening.
The best way to round off a Pisa matchday is simply to stay in the old town, where the bars of Via San Martino and the riverfront keep going after the game. With everything so close together, there is no real crush to wait out, just a pleasant walk back into a beautiful city.
The Arena Garibaldi opened in 1919 and has been the home of Pisa football ever since, one of the older grounds still in continuous use in Italy. Its formal name honours Romeo Anconetani, the flamboyant chairman who led the club through its most famous era in the 1980s and died in 1999, and the ground was named after him in the early 2000s. In recent years it has also carried a commercial name, the Cetilar Arena, through sponsorship.
Under Anconetani, a colourful and famously superstitious chairman, Pisa punched above their weight, signing well-regarded overseas players and earning a reputation as a small club that could surprise the giants, and the ground hosted four Italy internationals, drawing its record crowd of 21,729 for the visit of Yugoslavia in September 1987. The Anconetani years remain the reference point for what this club and this ground can be at their best. After the Anconetani era the club fell on hard times, including financial collapse and a rebuild through the lower divisions, a story of decline and revival familiar to many Italian clubs.
The modern chapter is the return to the top flight. Pisa sealed promotion to Serie A in 2025, ending a 34-year absence from the top division, and the Arena Garibaldi was reconfigured to meet league standards, with phased works reshaping the stands and lifting the usable capacity above the ten thousand mark for the first time in years. For a club and a city that had waited so long, the return of top-flight football to this old ground was a landmark, and it turned every home fixture into an occasion as the famous names of Serie A arrived in Pisa for the first time in a generation.
The stadium's biggest crowd came on 23 September 1987, when Italy beat Yugoslavia 1-0 in front of 21,729, the record attendance for the ground and a reminder of the days when the national team toured its smaller cities. The most significant recent chapter was the 2025 promotion campaign, when Pisa secured a return to Serie A after 34 years, sparking celebrations across the city. The club's first Serie A season back at the Arena Garibaldi has brought the giants of Italian football to this compact ground, giving a new generation of supporters the sort of nights their parents remember from the Anconetani era.
The works carried out for the Serie A return were the first stage of a phased plan to modernise the Arena Garibaldi, redesigning the stands and improving hospitality and media facilities to meet league requirements, with the usable capacity rising towards around 12,500. Reports have discussed more substantial redevelopment of the ground or a longer-term stadium project in the years ahead, but any such plans should be treated as proposals rather than confirmed schemes until the club and the city set out concrete details. For now the reconfigured ground is the settled home of Pisa's top-flight football.
As one of the older grounds still in use in Italy, and one undergoing phased modernisation, the Arena Garibaldi has more limited accessibility than a purpose-built modern stadium. Accessible spaces are provided, and the works around the Serie A return have included improvements to facilities, but the layout can change between fixtures while construction continues. Supporters with access requirements should contact the club directly well before the match to confirm the available provision, arrange suitable seating and check the route into the ground, rather than assuming a fixed arrangement. The central location does at least mean a short, level approach from the city centre and the nearest station.
With a small ground and a full Serie A calendar, the biggest fixtures at the Arena Garibaldi sell out fast. The visits of the Italian giants are the standout draws, and you can follow them on the Pisa vs Inter tickets and Pisa vs Napoli tickets pages, while the full home programme sits on the Pisa SC tickets and Serie A tickets listings. Matches against the other big clubs and the Tuscan sides drive strong demand too, and supporters combining a wider European trip sometimes line up a Champions League tickets or Europa League tickets night around a Pisa visit. Fixtures against mid-table sides are the most accessible and sometimes available closer to kick-off. Secondary-market prices move with demand, so treat any figure as indicative rather than fixed and buy early for the marquee matches.
1BoxOffice is a verified secondary marketplace that has operated since 2006, showing seat-level detail before you pay and backing every order with a 150% money-back guarantee if a ticket fails to grant entry on matchday. The eight steps below cover the process from finding a fixture to tracking your order.
Step1
Find the fixture
Go to the Arena Garibaldi listing on 1BoxOffice and select the match you want. Each fixture shows the available sections and current pricing before you commit to a seat.
Step2
Check the seat detail
Use the section and price filters to compare areas. Seat location is shown against the venue layout, so you can weigh the Curva Nord atmosphere against a calmer Tribuna seat before deciding.
Step3
Confirm the supporter section
Make sure the area matches who you are travelling with. Home, family and visiting-supporter sections are listed separately, and away fans are routed to the designated Curva Sud sector.
Step4
Review before checkout
Check the delivery method and the kick-off time against your travel plans, and note that Italian tickets are name-linked. Serie A kick-off times can shift with broadcast scheduling, so verify the date and time before you book flights or a hotel.
Step5
Create your account
First-time buyers should create an account to complete checkout and receive the ticket. Returning customers simply log in. An account keeps your order and delivery details in one place.
Step6
Complete payment
All major credit and debit cards are accepted. The 150% money-back guarantee applies automatically to every order if the ticket fails to grant entry on matchday.
Step7
Receive your ticket
Tickets for Pisa fixtures are increasingly issued digitally. Keep the live ticket in your wallet or the ticketing app ready to scan, travel with matching identification and avoid relying on a saved screenshot that may fail at the turnstile.
Step8
Track your order
Follow delivery status and manage your booking through track order. Digital tickets arrive ahead of the match so you can travel with everything ready.
Pisa is one of the easiest and most rewarding football trips in Europe to organise, because the ground sits inside a world-famous tourist city. Flights land at Pisa International Airport barely three kilometres from the centre, with the PisaMover shuttle into Pisa Centrale in minutes. Base yourself in the old town near the Arno or the Tower and you can walk to the ground, the sights and the restaurants alike. Card payment is widely accepted, though it is worth carrying some euros for smaller bars and market stalls, and remember to travel with identification given the name-linked tickets.
With Tuscany so well connected, many supporters build a longer trip around the match. If you are lining up other games, the football tickets hub, the wider football tournaments calendar and the venues tickets directory show what else is on, while tournament travellers follow the World Cup tickets hub. In Pisa itself, the Leaning Tower, the Piazza dei Miracoli, the cathedral and the Arno riverfront are all within a short walk of the ground and make the city a fine matchday destination in its own right.
Following the reconfiguration for Pisa's return to Serie A, the ground holds a little over 12,000, with works lifting the usable capacity towards around 12,500. The historic stadium once held far more in its old form. Its record attendance is 21,729, set for an Italy international in 1987.
Walk. The ground is only a few minutes on foot from the Leaning Tower and around fifteen to twenty minutes from the heart of the old town. Pisa is compact and flat, so walking is the easiest and most enjoyable way to the match, and local buses from Pisa Centrale also serve the Tower area.
Pisa San Rossore is the closest station, a short walk from the Tower and the ground. Pisa Centrale, the main station on the south side of the city, is about two kilometres away and reached by a twenty-five-minute walk or a bus towards the Tower. Both link Pisa with Florence, Lucca and the coast.
Parking is very limited and central Pisa has camera-enforced restricted-traffic zones, so driving to the ground is awkward. The best plan is to use a car park on the edge of the centre and walk in. For visitors arriving by train or plane there is no need to drive at all.
Yes. Most Pisa league fixtures are sold to the general public, and Italian tickets are name-linked. Because the ground is small, the biggest fixtures against the Italian giants sell out fast, so for those a verified secondary marketplace is a practical route, with seat detail shown before you pay.
Travel light, as large bags and rucksacks are refused and there is no guarantee of a bag store at an old ground. Expect a search at the entrance. Glass bottles, cans, pyrotechnics, flares, weapons and offensive banners are prohibited. Check the club's matchday guidance for the current bag size limit before you travel.
The Curva Nord is the home of the Pisa ultras and the most boisterous part of the ground, generating the colour, flags and noise. Target it for the fullest atmosphere. The Tribuna and Gradinata on the long sides are calmer and better suited to a clear tactical view of the game.
Away supporters are given a designated sector, generally within the Curva Sud end, with the size set for each fixture. The ongoing works around the Serie A return have altered this end, so the exact allocation and layout can change. Segregation applies in line with Italian matchday rules.
Accessible spaces are provided, but as an older ground undergoing phased modernisation the provision is more limited than at a new stadium and the layout can change between fixtures. Supporters with access requirements should contact the club directly before the match to confirm what is available and to arrange seating.
Gates open ahead of kick-off to let the crowd in, and with a security search and name checks the queues build early on a big night. Aim to arrive in good time rather than close to it, especially for a sell-out. The precise opening time is confirmed with your ticket for each fixture.
Inside the ground the catering is simple, with kiosks selling snacks and drinks and payment increasingly by card. The real draw is the old town: Pisa is a proper Tuscan food city, so most supporters eat and drink in the centre beforehand, with the bars of Via San Martino a popular pre-match gathering point.
Family and quieter seating is found in the tribune areas away from the ultras' curve. Age accompaniment rules for children are set by the club for each fixture, so confirm the exact requirement and any child pricing at the point of purchase rather than assuming a fixed rule.
The Arena Garibaldi does not run a large public tour programme like the biggest clubs, and access is limited by the ongoing works. Check with the club for any current visit or museum options. In the meantime the Leaning Tower and the Piazza dei Miracoli next door are the obvious sights for a matchday visit.
Prices vary by fixture. Games against mid-table sides are the more accessible, while the visits of the Italian giants command higher prices and sell out fast given the small capacity. Secondary-market prices move with demand, so treat any figure as indicative rather than a promise.
Stay in the old town near the Arno or around the Tower for the best mix of bars, restaurants, sights and a short walk to the ground. Both areas are within easy reach of the stations and only minutes from the stadium, which makes Pisa an unusually convenient city for a matchday.
Tickets are increasingly digital and name-linked, so the barcode sits in your phone wallet or the ticketing app and identification can be checked at the entrance. Charge your phone, turn up the screen brightness and travel with matching ID. A saved screenshot can fail to scan when a barcode refreshes, so rely on the live ticket.
It is known for its position beside the Leaning Tower, one of the most famous settings of any ground in the world, and for the passion of the Pisa ultras in the Curva Nord. On the pitch it is the stage for the club's return to Serie A in 2025 after 34 years away.
Almost everything Pisa is famous for is within a short walk: the Leaning Tower, the Piazza dei Miracoli, the cathedral and the baptistery are a few minutes away, and the Arno riverfront and the old-town streets are close by. Few grounds sit so near a world-famous landmark.
The ground opened in 1919 and has been home to Pisa football ever since, making it one of the older stadiums still in use in Italy. It is the home of Pisa Sporting Club and is owned by the Municipality of Pisa. Its formal name honours the former chairman Romeo Anconetani.
They are as safe as the marketplace you use. A verified marketplace shows seat details before checkout, confirms sellers and offers a money-back policy if the ticket fails to admit you. 1BoxOffice has operated since 2006 and applies a 150% money-back guarantee. Avoid anonymous sellers who will not show seat details before payment.
Sources: Pisa Sporting Club (pisasportingclub.com), Municipality of Pisa, Lega Serie A and stadium reference records. Information was gathered in July 2026 and may change; check sources for the latest details. 1BoxOffice is not affiliated with Pisa Sporting Club or the Arena Garibaldi. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.