I have always been drawn to what is far away, different, and adventurous, and I can never stop planning trips overseas and new challenges. But because of my family’s work when I was young, and my own now, I spend several months a year rooted in the Cinque Terre, free only to explore what lies nearby. Among all those short local outings, Lucca has always held a special place in my heart. I cannot stay away from her for long: she is a Lady.
Lucca is like a candy box
Lucca is like a confetto, one of those sugared-almond wedding favours we Italians give our guests, but a lovely one, not the sad what-do-I-do-with-this kind. A small jewel perfectly held inside its case: the kilometres of city walls that still ring it, protecting it from the outside world and, somehow, from reality itself.
It is from those walls that I usually begin my afternoons in the city. Once through the Porta San Pietro I climb up to the ramparts and, just as Maria Luisa of Bourbon intended when she had them laid out as a promenade, I set off along that beautiful raised boulevard that separates everyday life from the beauty of the old town, its churches flecked with coloured marble, its swarm of workshops and traditional restaurants, its gardens and the towers I could not wait to climb as a child.
On the walls of Lucca you meet the whole human race: people like me wandering with a camera and a slightly lost expression, runners, elegant ladies walking their dogs, people talking too loudly on the phone, lovers. A whole world up there.
I only drop down into the streets when something catches my eye, a tiled roof, the pull to revisit a particular church or square, a doorway or a window that deserves a photograph. And Lucca, believe me, is full of details that deserve one.
What to see in Lucca
Among the sights you should not miss is the striking Torre Guinigi, crowned with a roof garden of holm oaks, a symbol of rebirth, and my favourite stop as a girl.
Then there is the Torre delle Ore, the Tower of the Hours, named for the town’s first clock bell, installed in 1390. It was improved over the centuries until 1752, when the Republic of Lucca commissioned a new mechanism from the Swiss watchmaker Louis Simon, working with the Lucchese Caturegli. Its bells were unusual, striking the hours the Roman way, one to six, while two smaller bells marked the quarters. The beautiful hand-wound mechanism is still there to see at the top: a tower for anyone who loves clocks.
A combined ticket covers both the towers and the Botanical Garden of Maria Luisa of Bourbon, reopened in 1965, with its lovely library and its greenhouses and herbaria. (Ticket combinations and prices change, so check the current options when you go, buying a combined ticket is usually the saving if you plan to climb the towers and see the garden.)
Lucca’s churches are another glory, it is said there were over a hundred in the Renaissance. My favourite is the Basilica di San Frediano. What you see today is the result of several rebuildings, from the first in the later sixth century under Saint Frediano himself, whose body lies in the crypt, to the thirteenth-century changes that gave the facade its mosaic, which still stops pa
The Cattedrale di San Martino is magnificent, its polychrome columns making visitors lose all track of time. The portico, where money-changers once set up their benches for pilgrims on the Via Francigena, and the bell tower are pure beauty, carried on inside by Ghirlandaio’s Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints.
But the icon of Lucca is Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, built precisely on the ellipse of a second-century Roman amphitheatre. In the Middle Ages it became a huddle of gunpowder stores, prisons, warehouses and salt stores, I would have loved to see it then. In the nineteenth century the Lucchese architect Nottolini cleared the buildings to make a market square, and today the ellipse is a pure delight. At its centre a stone marks a cross, the meeting point of its four gateways.
Quieter, but closest to my own heart, is the birthplace of Giacomo Puccini, now a museum. The composer lived in this second-floor apartment until he left for Milan and the start of his career, and almost nothing has changed. Perhaps it is because I love opera, and spent years working in opera houses, but I always come away lighter for having stood among his photographs, letters, autograph scores and his Steinway, imagining the lives and worlds they conjure. Their website has visiting details.
And finally, a treat for the curious and the history-lovers: did you know a guillotine once stood on the lawn before the Porta San Donato? It remained there until the summer of 1845 and the last execution of its kind on Italian soil. Its homeland, France, kept the practice up until 1977.
Lucca is also a city of festivals, including the wonderful, wildly inventive Lucca Comics & Games, but that deserves a post of its own.
Further reading
- The official Puccini Museum in Lucca
- Lucca Comics & Games festival
- This article is also available as a mobile app, via GPSmyCity, for GPS-guided directions to the places above
Frequently asked questions
Very much so. Lucca is one of Tuscany’s most charming small cities, entirely enclosed by intact Renaissance walls you can walk or cycle right around. Within them you find the Torre Guinigi with its rooftop oaks, the Roman ellipse of Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, beautiful churches like San Frediano and the Cattedrale di San Martino, and Puccini’s birthplace. It is calmer and less overrun than Florence or Pisa, and rewards slow wandering.
Lucca is famous for its completely preserved city walls, now a tree-lined promenade; for being the birthplace of the composer Giacomo Puccini; for the Torre Guinigi topped with holm oak trees; and for Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, an oval square built on a Roman amphitheatre. It is also known for the Lucca Comics & Games festival each autumn.
A day is enough to walk the walls and see the main sights, the towers, Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, the cathedral and San Frediano, and Puccini’s house. But Lucca rewards a slower pace, and staying a night lets you enjoy it in the quiet early morning and evening once the day trippers have gone.
Yes. The Torre Guinigi is famous for the holm oaks growing on its roof and gives lovely views over the city, and the Torre delle Ore, the clock tower, can also be climbed to see its historic hand-wound mechanism. A combined ticket often covers the towers together with the Botanical Garden; check current prices and combinations when you visit.
Yes. Lucca is well connected by train to Pisa (around 30 minutes) and Florence (a little over an hour), and is close to the Versilia coast and the Garfagnana hills, so it makes a calm, characterful base for exploring north-western Tuscany without staying in the busier tourist cities.
