Pisa, Italy

Pisa sits on the Arno River in Tuscany with roughly 91,000 residents, and from the 11th through 15th centuries it ranked among Italy's major maritime republics. The UNESCO-listed Piazza dei Miracoli gathers the 1063 cathedral, the 1153 baptistery, the 1278 Camposanto cemetery, and the 56-metre Leaning Tower, begun in 1173 and completed in 1372, which now tilts 3.97 metres off vertical. Galileo Galilei, born here in 1564, studied pendulum motion using a hanging lamp inside that cathedral. The 14th-century University of Pisa is among the oldest in the country, while Santa Maria della Spina, a 1230 Gothic church just 10 metres long, stands directly on the riverbank.