The Walled City of Lucca

Wednesday, October 19, 2011 Eva 0 Comments

Allora (as the Italians would say), our next Italian stopover after leaving the Chianti area is Lucca in the north-west part of Tuscany.  It’s Sunday morning and the church bells are ringing crazily two doors away from our hotel.  In Italy you’re never too far away from a church or the sound of ringing bells.  The weather is hot and muggy today. It’s expected to reach 40 degrees, the first time we’ve experienced such high temps since our time in Uzbekistan.  It’s far too steamy to be out walking the medieval streets until the temperature drops a few C’s and the coastal breeze reaches us. We’re a long way off for a dip in the ocean waters which would be the perfect antidote to today’s heat.
This is the birthplace of Puccini, which we weren’t aware of (embarrassed to say we hadn’t done much research before our arrival). His operas are performed here and cafes and restaurants are named after him. Pasticcerias (patisseries) make references to Puccini through their wares, aka Madama Butterfly cakes. We didn’t get around to tasting any theatrically-sounding sweets, nor go to any operas, a shame; although 'La Boheme', one of my absolute favourites, was not being performed which made me feel a teensy bit better.  His birthplace was closed for renovation until next month – so no luck on all Puccini fronts.

Puccini's birthplace sits at the far corner of this piazza

We’re here, however, because Lucca is the only completely walled-in town in Italy with its original Renaissance walls still intact as it hadn’t been bombed in WWII.  We’d heard great things about this place. It has a fascinating history where it was a centre of silk production in the Middle Ages (although there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of this now) and Napoleon Bonaparte’s sister ruled the city for a while.

Our first evening here was spent strolling the 4km circuit that crowns the top of the city’s ramparts.  We joined cyclists, joggers, walkers and families with prams partaking in a little passeggiata (promenading) on this wide path that is lined with trees up at this height.  Earlier that day, for a higher elevation, we climbed to the top of Lucca’s tower of the hour (ie, historic clock tower) for panoramic views across terracotta rooftops, palazzos, churches and hill-surrounded backdrops.  Memories of past travels to the land of pizzas and piazzas came flooding back – I’d forgotten how the leg and butt muscles get a good workout climbing all those ancient steps and towers.
Max practising his Tyrolean hiker's pose
on Lucca's ramparts

Although Lucca is very close to Pisa and Florence we chose to stay away from these heavily touristed places. The summer heat, parking woes and tourist crowds made it a definite no-go zone for us. Florence, as we’d previously discovered, is uncomfortably jam-packed any time of the year, and we agreed that it would be best to come back to Italy in cooler climes to visit these locations.

We climbed more than 200 steps to the top of the Torre delle Ore
for panoramic views

So we took in Lucca at a leisurely pace. Several churches and cathedrals, its city gates and little streets, a Roman amphitheatre whose ruins had turned into a piazza with housing over the ages now with cafes and restaurants, sampling the gelati, naturally.……. We also had the chance to sit in front of our hotel room’s TV which we hadn’t done for simply ages, watching programs dubbed in Italian as well as some very old, ghastly Aussie TV series and movies (real shockers that must surely had been a bargain for Italian networks to purchase). We understood barely an Italian word emanating from the idiot box, but sat there mutely like zombies attracted to the moving pictures.

More interesting than Italian TV, a monthly antique market in the piazzas around the Cattedrale di San Martino and spilling into other side streets had us browsing old oil paintings, American 1960’s-1970’s costume jewellery, African crafts, retro furniture as well as vintage bric-a-brac. Max lingered over the timeworn English sports goods, an unusual place to find such a collection.  The term ‘antique’ seemed a little fluid.

Antique markets around the Cathedral



It’s August (I’m way behind in posting my blogs, as you can tell,) and the summer sales are on.  Comparing prices with those back home, clothing in Italy is great value.  I went from trying medium sizes to large…. then extra-large.  I gave up after devastating moments in front of many fitting-room mirrors with pants that would pull up just a little further than the knees and tops that would best serve me as either a straightjacket or a neck warmer. The only thing that fitted was a scarf. Come on, are all Italian women really that small? You’d have to be 10 years old to fit into some of those boutique sizes.  So, in fact the clothing was really good value – I saved a heap of euros.

We’re getting quite comfortable walking hip-to-hubcap with trucks, buses and cars down narrow squeezy roads. Whilst it would not be the done thing back home, here it’s acceptable for pedestrians to spill out directly onto the roads, especially where there are either no footpaths or they’re no wider than a handkerchief.  Often it’s the vehicles that slowly pick their way around and through the passers-by.

Street view of Guinigi tower with oak trees on top

We’ve spent a day or two longer than we had anticipated in this city – our fault due to not planning too far ahead or taking into account how busy the Italian coast would be in late August.  Often it’s a few days before moving on that we make up our minds about where we want to go next.  This time we got caught out without accommodation for the Cinque Terre region.  

I’d searched online and sent emails to numerous places, finally tracking down a hotel room that was a little more than what we wanted to pay, but in this season beggars can’t be choosers.  The owner and I emailed each other to and fro, until there was no response to one of my queries.  The day before our arrival in Cinque Terre a phone call from Max to confirm and check on details regarding our booking revealed that our reservation had been given away.   Unbelievable!  Merda (that’s shit in Italian)!

A heap of phone calls directly to accommodation places by Max at a public phone booth in the heat of the afternoon turned up no result – many were booked up until the end of the month.  A call to a regional tourist office and Max was told that the Cinque Terre was fully booked for miles.  #!@?! Insert very strong expletives here.

Yesterday afternoon I sent off a bundle of pleading emails to accommodation places hoping someone would take pity on us.  All came back to us in the negative. Finally today, we received one positive response – a hotel owner who had no hotel rooms left but her private apartment in the centre of Levanto was available due to a cancellation.  Yoohoo!  We’re finally moving on.



Tonight (our fifth and final night) we are dining at one of the many little Italian trattorias inside the town walls with one of the hotel guests, a British tourist who shares Max’s enthusiasm for the game of cricket.  We are looking for an alternative to pizza, so it’s pasta tonight.  I think we’ll be celebrating our great luck, as well. 


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