Lucca

Lucca keeps its Renaissance walls whole and turns them into a green promenade above a city of Romanesque churches, medieval towers and quiet piazzas. Birthplace of Giacomo Puccini and a proud republic for centuries, it rewards walkers and cyclists with architecture you can circle on foot in an afternoon yet never quite exhaust.

Why visit

Few Italian cities let you walk their history the way Lucca does. The Walls of Lucca still ring the entire historic centre in an unbroken four-kilometre circuit, and instead of being dismantled they became one of Europe’s most agreeable urban parks: a broad, tree-lined elevated promenade where locals jog, cycle and take the evening passeggiata while looking down at red rooftops and bell towers. Inside those ramparts lies a compact, almost entirely traffic-calmed centre packed with Romanesque facades, towers you can climb, and squares that grew organically out of the Roman grid and the Roman amphitheatre. Lucca suits travellers who like their sights walkable and their atmosphere understated; it is also an easy base, with Pisa, the coast and the Garfagnana valley all close, yet many visitors find the best day here is the one spent going nowhere else at all.

Character and history

Lucca’s street plan betrays its Roman origins, and the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro preserves the outline of the ancient arena in its elliptical shape, with houses built directly over the old arcades. In the Middle Ages the city grew wealthy on silk and banking, and its merchants raised some 130 towers; only a handful survive, among them the Guinigi Tower, built by the banking Guinigi family and crowned with a hanging garden of holm oaks that has become the city’s most recognisable silhouette.

As an independent republic, Lucca kept its freedom through diplomacy while neighbours fought, and the massive brick ramparts begun in the mid-sixteenth century and completed in the seventeenth were never put to a serious siege. That untested strength is precisely why they survive intact. Under Elisa Baciocchi, Napoleon’s sister who ruled the principality in the early nineteenth century, the walls were planted as a promenade. Music runs through the city’s identity: Puccini was born here in 1858 into a dynasty of local composers, and the tradition continues at the Teatro del Giglio Giacomo Puccini.

What to see

The Cathedral of San Martino anchors the city’s spiritual and artistic life. Its Romanesque facade, with carved colonnades and stacked tiers of sculpture, faces the small Piazza Antelminelli, and inside you will find two unmissable works: the Volto Santo, an ancient wooden crucifix venerated here for a thousand years, and Jacopo della Quercia’s tender tomb of Ilaria del Carretto, plus a Tintoretto Last Supper. The adjacent Cathedral Museum (Museo delle Misse) displays the cathedral treasury, historic textiles and parchments, and a ticket typically covers the Bell Tower of Lucca Cathedral and the Santi Giovanni e Reparata Complex, whose excavations reveal mosaics, a baptistery and an early crypt beneath the church.

Elsewhere the Romanesque unfolds in variants: the sky-high arcaded facade of the Church of San Michele in Foro on the ancient forum, the striped front of the Basilica of San Frediano with the tomb of Santa Zita, and quieter gems such as the Church of Santa Maria Forisportam. Climb the Tower of the Hours (Torre delle Ore) for the tallest viewpoint in the centre, and descend to the underground Roman Domus (House of the Child on the Dolphin) for a look at Roman Lucca beneath modern floors.

For civic and domestic history, the Ducal Palace (Palazzo Ducale) hosts the Risorgimento Museum and the Paolo Cresci Museum for the History of Italian Emigration; the state-run National Museum of Palazzo Mansi shows woven tapestries and the city’s picture gallery. Music lovers should not miss the Giacomo Puccini Birthplace (Puccini Museum), where the composer’s rooms are refurnished as he knew them.

How to experience

Begin with the walls. Rent a bicycle or simply walk the full circuit; the ramparts are free, shaded, and give you the city’s geography at a glance. Then explore on foot: the cathedral complex, Piazza San Michele and the amphitheatre square are never more than fifteen minutes apart.

Time your climb of the Guinigi Tower for late afternoon, when the holm oaks throw shade over the terrace and the Apuan Alps stand out to the northwest. The Caffe delle Mura on the ramparts makes a convenient pause, and the Carmine Market, the historic covered market, is a good place to assemble a picnic for the walls.

Beyond the centre, follow the Via Francigena in Lucca, the pilgrim route that has crossed the city for a millennium, or walk beside the neoclassical arches of the Nottolini Aqueduct Park. Garden lovers can visit the Botanical Garden of Lucca, founded in 1820, or the baroque Pfanner Palace and Garden. Lucca also stages major music festivals in summer and events on the walls through the year.

Practical planning

Lucca sits on the main rail line between Pisa and Florence, with frequent regional trains from Pisa taking under half an hour and Florence around an hour and a half. The walled centre is compact enough for every major sight to be reached on foot, and cycling is the local habit, with bike hire shops around the walls. Cars must stay outside the walls, with paid parking just beyond the gates.

Most churches and museums charge modest combined tickets, with the cathedral complex and the city towers usually packaged together; hours and ticket arrangements change with the season and with liturgical events, so check official sites before setting out. Autumn is a fine season, when the September feast of the Holy Cross brings the Volto Santo into the open. Summer is lively but hot. A day trip works, but an overnight stay reveals the quieter city that appears when the day-trippers leave.

Nearby places

• Pietrasanta — a sculpture town at the foot of the Apuan Alps, some thirty minutes west.
• Forte dei Marmi — the Versilia seaside resort, close to the coast.
• Viareggio — Liberty-style beach city and Puccini’s later home territory on Lake Massaciuccoli.
• Barga — a hilltop village in the Serchio valley, north into the Garfagnana.