Lucca

The walled city: bike the Renaissance ramparts, climb the tree-topped tower, and hear Puccini at home.

Walled City • Tree-Topped Tower • Puccini's Home

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🎺 Lucca Essentials

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Best Time: Apr-Jun, Sep-Oct

Wall-top cycling weather

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1-2 Days Ideal

Slow is the whole point here

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From Pisa/Florence: 30/80 min

Easy trains; walls 10 min from station

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Signature: Buccellato

Anise-raisin bread; Puccini’s hometown soundtrack

🧭 Why Visit

Lucca hides behind perfect Renaissance walls you can cycle on top of: four kilometers of tree-lined ramparts circling towers, piazzas, and Puccini's birthplace. It's Tuscany at conversational volume.

🏛️ A Little History

Lucca stayed an independent republic for nearly 500 years: tiny, rich on silk and banking, and diplomatic enough to keep Florence out. Its walls, never once needed in battle, became Europe's loveliest elevated park.

💡 Did You Know?

Torre Guinigi has full-grown oak trees on its roof: a medieval family's hanging garden, climbable today. Piazza dell'Anfiteatro's oval shape is the ghost of the Roman amphitheater whose foundations still shape the houses.

📷 The Photographs

Every photo on this page is ours, taken on an October day in 2006. We were studying in Florence that fall, and a school trip put us in Pisa in the morning and Lucca later the same day, with a Pentax digital doing the work. Twenty years on, the cameras have changed beyond recognition and Lucca has barely changed at all, which tells you most of what you need to know about Lucca. One gap we owe the city: we never walked the tree-lined ramparts that day. That photograph waits for the next visit.

Walking

The Old Town

Towers, an oval piazza that used to be an arena, and a lot of arcade.

The tiered arcaded facade of San Michele in Foro in Lucca against a blue sky — **San Michele Holds the Sky**Four tiers of arcade with every column carved differently, and the archangel balanced on top of the lot.

A yellow church and a brick campanile rising over the rooftops of Lucca — **Church and Campanile**Lucca has more churches than a town this size can possibly need, and a brick tower over most of them.

The curved houses of Piazza dell Anfiteatro in Lucca following the line of the Roman arena — **A Roman Oval, Still Lived In**The houses curve because the arena did first, and the shutters and flower boxes never left.

An arched passage leading into Piazza dell Anfiteatro through a yellow palazzo in Lucca — **The Way In**One of four low arches through the ring of houses. There is no other way into the piazza.

The Guinigi tower in Lucca with oak trees growing on its crown, seen along a narrow lane — **The Tower With a Garden on Top**Holm oaks grow from the crown of the Guinigi tower, framed here at the end of a narrow lane.

A brick medieval tower rising behind the houses at a street corner in Lucca — **Towers at the Corner**Lucca had well over a hundred towers once. A handful survive, mostly built into whatever came after them.

A dark vaulted passage in Lucca opening to daylight at its far end — **The Passage**A vaulted way through a block, opening to green at the far end. Lucca is full of these and none of them are signposted.

A narrow street in Lucca with a sunlit palazzo closing the view at the end — **Narrow and Then Sunlit**The streets stay tight and shaded until one of them opens onto a lit facade.

The Cathedral

San Martino

Lucca puts its best carving on the outside of its cathedral.

The arcaded upper tiers of San Martino cathedral in Lucca, each small column carved differently — **Lucca Wears Its Columns Out Front**Arcade stacked on arcade, and no two of the small columns carved the same.

Carved marble reliefs of saints running across a portal of San Martino cathedral in Lucca — **The Carving Over the Threshold**Marble reliefs run across the portal, saints in a row beneath a scene held in the arch.

A dark bronze door of San Martino cathedral in Lucca set in a carved marble frame — **The Bronze Door**Dark bronze in a carved marble frame, with a relief band of figures across the lintel above it.

A carved marble frieze and inlaid roundels on the porch wall of San Martino in Lucca — **The Porch Wall**Carved panels and inlaid roundels along the porch. The labours of the months run through here if you look for them.

A marble Virgin with a gilded sunburst set against the striped flank of Lucca cathedral — **A Gilded Madonna on the Corner**Rays of gold fan out behind a marble Virgin tucked against the cathedral's striped flank.

Inside

Inside the Cathedral

The Volto Santo in its own little temple, and the quieter corners.

Matteo Civitali's gilded marble tempietto sheltering the Volto Santo in Lucca cathedral — **The Gold Room Inside**Matteo Civitali's little temple of 1484 guards the Volto Santo, a cage of gilded light in the side of the nave.

A carved wooden crucifix hanging on a plain wall inside a church in Lucca — **A Wooden Crucifix**Carved wood on a plain wall, with nothing arranged around it.

A lit shrine with a crowned Madonna glowing in a blue niche in Lucca — **The Lit Shrine**A crowned Madonna glowing in a blue niche, lit and tended, on an ordinary Lucca street.

Live Prices & Availability

Stay Nearby

🚴 Stay in Lucca

Stay inside the walls. The city empties at dusk, the ramparts become a promenade, and Pisa is twenty minutes when you want it.

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Getting There & Around

Rent bikes and ride the Renaissance walls: 4km of tree-lined ramparts circling the whole city
Climb Torre Guinigi for the oak trees growing on its roof and the rooftop panorama

Local Know-How

Piazza dell'Anfiteatro's oval traces the Roman arena beneath: best appreciated from a café table
An evening Puccini recital at San Giovanni runs year-round: his birthplace museum is nearby

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes Lucca different from other Tuscan towns?

It's flat, walled, and lived-in: the intact Renaissance ramparts are a park you cycle, the economy isn't purely tourism, and evenings belong to locals doing the passeggiata.

Is half a day enough?

It works from Pisa or Florence, but Lucca rewards a night: the walls at sunset, an amphitheatre dinner, and a Puccini recital make the slow version.

Bikes: where and how?

Rental shops cluster near Porta Santa Maria; the wall loop takes 30 relaxed minutes. Kids' trailers and tandems available: it's genuinely flat.

What should I eat?

Tordelli lucchese (meat-stuffed pasta with ragù), farro soup, buccellato with the coffee: and olive oil from the surrounding hills on everything.

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