Certosa di Calci&Dinosaurs

Welcome to Certosa di Calci, a baroque-style Carthusian monastery, founded in the 1366. It is one of the beautiful places close to Pisa ( Calci is 10km away from Pisa) that everyone should visit.

The Certosa di Calci is a monumental complex, used by Carthusian monks until the 1970s and today open for tourists and visitors. It is constitued by a big internal courtyard surrounded by buildings and beyond these buildings there are cellars, orchards and areas that were suitable for Carthusian life.

A wing of the complex hosts the Natural History Museum of Pisa University where important paleontological and zoological collections are preserved.

When we decided to visit the Certosa, it was Monday and, once there, we discovered it was closed ( that’s why i do not post inside photos… but i’ve discovered a nice Virtual Tour here !). Fortunately our original and principal reason for being there was my son’s passion for dinosaurs. I’ve told him lots of time that in a museum he could see real, full-scale dinosaur bones and footmarks so that day he was so excited !!!

The Natural History Museum of Pisa is an interesting museum, not big, compared to other museums, but rich in documents, collections, archeological finds and curiosities. Over there, Marco could see and understand more about dinosaurs but also “existing” animals. During the visit i answered tons of his questions but, above all, about prehistoric sharks, oceanic dinosaurs and “modern” whales … and Pinocchio !!!!!! In the museum i’ve, happily, discovered another important thing: the museum organizes activity and tours for kids !!!