Lucca - Admire Puccini's Home Town From Its Complete City Wall

Lucca, one of the most famous cities in Tuscany, is located on the left hand bank of the river Serchio.

The city is enclosed by walls. These defenses assured the town would never be taken by siege with 4Km –2.5 mile x 8 meter–27 feet high. You can take a pleasant walk or bicycle ride here. Locals and tourists use the wall for there morning jog while admiring the surrounding views from this advantage point.

There’s a lot to see in this city: museums, churches and an amphitheatre.

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The historical town centre has the layout of a Roman colony. With beautiful gardens, medieval towers and palaces. Unlike Pisa with its grand leaning tower, the Guinigi tower look up will see a tree growing; all over this city you will find works of art and monuments.

Famous people born here? To list just a few [Matteo Civitali .Sculptor] [Francesco Germiniani.musician composer][Giuseppe Ungaetti.poet] Not to mention a Pope and a Saint [pope Lucius 111] and [Gemma Galgani saint].

Lucca is also the birthplace of opera and music composer Puccini.

One evening we found our way to a Puccini & Mozart recital which lasted just over an hour, costing 16 euros’ each, probably the best 32 Euros spent on this vacation. DVDs are also on sale to add to this fantastic performance. Children were allowed and cameras also permitted.

This was one of the most memorable parts of our trip. Coming to Italy and not seeing a classical performance would have been a disappointment…

Giacomo Puccini, 22-12-1858 – Brussels 29–11-1924, who for most of his life Lucca denied recognition but now the city embraces there favorite son by hosting a permanent festival. A year long, with no breaks the festival is held in the place where Puccini was baptized the church of San Giovanni…

The best time to visit is in September when the church puts on a masterwork of Puccini - this is really a must for all opera lovers.

Eating out was sometimes a little disappointing.

Over the three days that we spent here in Lucca, eating in some of the many restaurants throughout the city was a little disappointing. In and around the amphitheatre there’s plenty to choose from and after finding one with a suitable menu we sat down, the waiter came quite quickly.

A bruschetta and lasagna was ordered, not what we expected. The bruschetta looked like a loaf of bread cut sideways covered with tomato and cheese and placed under a grill with some ham on top. We began to eat this loaf when the lasagna arrived at the table. Having been in Italy 12 days we agreed lasagna should be tried.

It came as freshly made but to be honest, we had left fruit in a bowl fresher back home.

Over the next two days in this area the restaurants we visited were much the same. One restaurant we dinned at two couples and a group of 4 came at separate times and left. One couple had ordered but seeing customers with the same plate of food that they had requested they made their excuses to the waiter and left.

Summing up on average we paid around 2 euro per head more than in other areas. But costs are always higher in tourist hot spots. The city does have very good restaurants but unfortunately we didn’t find them this time... this is our experience. Bon appetite … I will look harder next visit.

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