….a beautiful Tuscan town
On a Sunday, my husband and I decided to hop on the train in Florence and do a day trip to Lucca. Sundays and Mondays are not the best days to travel in Italy. At least on one of those two days tourists will be disappointed to find that shops and attractions are closed to the public. Luckily there were enough stores, churches and caffes open to keep us busy for the day.
Lucca is a historic city with Roman and Etruscan roots. In the 15th century a wall was built around the city that still remains today. The top of the wall is a great place to walk and ride your bike.
As we walked through an opening in the wall we were greeted by narrow cobblestone streets, numerous Gothic churches, beautiful piazzas, outdoor caffes, and stages and signs for music festivals.
I just read recently that there are 100 churches in Lucca. We definitely didn’t see that many but the ones I did see were very impressive.
Our original plan was to go to Pisa as well but it wasn’t to be. We were just too exhausted to make the extra trip. I’m not that disappointed. So many people told me that Lucca would have been their first choice as a destination.
Mama Cormier 
My mother was orphaned during the great depression in Philadelphia. We learned that her Italian parents were from this town. Thank you for the sneak peek into their world.
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How interesting. You should take a trip to Italy to get a first hand look at your heritage.
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Was there a few years ago so recognise where some of the photos were taken. We had a very quick whizz through Pisa with a stop to take a few photos of the tower. It seemed fairly industrial and quite run down from what we saw, so I don’t think you missed much. Florence and Lucca were definitely the best choices.
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I’ve heard this from quit a few people. My sister went there years ago and she seems to think that you can’t even walk up the steps inside the tower anymore.
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We made a quick detour on way to the airport so only stopped for a few photos and didn’t have time to see it close. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was closed as i seem to remember a great deal of work was done on it a few years ago as it was thought to be in danger of collapse. A firm came up with some novel way of stabilising it – but for how long? The lean is quite significant and I think until the work was done it was increasing.
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The wonder of it Italy is that there is always so much to take in and enjoy … even while Italians themselves have shut down for the day 🙂
I really like the photo inside the church of the small staircase to the pulpit.
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Thanks Joanne that’s one of my favourites as well.
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