How is Lucca?

Question

I want to go to Italy some time, and i heard about a charming town called Lucca. It's sparked a bit of interest. What's it like there?

Answer 1

Lucca is one of the provinces of Tuscany region, in Italy. It means that its registry office has a certain independency to the Italian Government.Lucca has undergone, form its first construction, during the VIth century, many internal wars and riots, but it was with the riots of Guelfi and Ghibellini, before the Renaissance, that Lucca has known its most troubled period.

Anyway, despite its troubled political and social situation, Lucca has always be very well known, in Europe, for its important textile market and for its banks.Dante Alighieri has lived for a long time in Lucca, during his exile from Florence.Lucca has been an independent republic until 1799, when Napoleone Bonaparte offered Lucca to his sister Elisa Bonaparte and her husband Felicie Baciocchi: the Principality of Lucca and Piombino was born.

Lucca is one of the main cities of art in Italy, its walls are very famous and well kept and give to Lucca the shape of a crown on the top of an hill. Thanks to its strong walls, the city centre of Lucca is intact with all its art pieces and historical buildings and churches. That is why Lucca is also named “The city with 100 Churches”, moreover, you can visit many towers, Renaissance buildings and other monuments inside the ancient walls of Lucca.

The urban construction of Lucca worth a mention, with its beautiful spaces, such as the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, an astonishing square that has been built on an ancient Roman theatre, Piazza S. Michele and Piazza S. Martino, where the beautiful cathedral of San Martino is located. These are the reasons why Lucca has been recently nominated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Answer 2

Beautiful medieval walls- very complete, amazing view from the top....

Answer 3

Lucca is my hometown...

What you've heard is true, it's a charming town. You should really come and visit here!

Answer 4

Great Saturday flea market and outstanding bread shops!  Try a walk around the top of the city walls.

Answer 5

magnifico

Answer 6

The old town inside the walls is very interesting. When I have visitors that want to visit the Leaning Tower in Pisa, we go there in the morning and then hop on the train and go to Lucca for the rest of the day. The really great views are from the towers of Palazzo Guinigi and the clock tower - especially the clock tower since then you get a view of the Giunigi tower with the trees growing from the top. In the summers, there's a good music festival there http://www.summer-festival.com/lucca/ind... There are several interesting churches including San Michele and the Duomo - be sure to go inside. Piazza anfiteatro is a nice place to sit and have a drink. It's unusual in that the shape of the piazza and buildings that enclose it are designed to be evocative of a Roman ampitheater that used to be there. Sometimes there are interesting exhibitions in the piazza - once when we were there, about 20 vintage Ferraris drove in for an antique car show. Palazzo Pfanner is worth a visit and the Pucinni House museum is good.

With one exception, everyone I've taken there has enjoyed the visit. The one exception was someone who thought that Lucca would be more of a Williamsburg type place with historical recreations. Lucca, like the rest of Italy, is very much a living city that happens to have a lot of historical places and a complete set of walls in the old town.

Answer 7

haha hey mom! Already thinking about Italy huh? guess that's where i get it from

Answer 8

Lucca is a city in Tuscany, northern central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plain near (but not on) the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca. Among other reasons, it is famous for its intact Renaissance-era city walls (although the city has expanded beyond the wall's boundaries).

Lucca was founded by the Etruscans (there are traces of a pre-existing Ligurian settlement) and became a Roman colony in 180 BC. The rectangular grid of its historical center preserves the Roman street plan, and the Piazza San Michele occupies the site of the ancient forum. Traces of the amphitheatre can still be seen in the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro.

The walls around the old town remained intact as the city expanded and modernized, unusual for cities in the region. As the walls lost their military importance, they became a pedestrian promenade which encircled the old town, although they were used for a number of years in the 20th century for racing cars. They are still fully intact today; each of the four principal sides is lined with a different tree species.

This the region of my Tuscan ancestors and as in many parts of Italy, Lucca and its surrounding regions are full of wonderful medieval history, as well as being close enough to other famous destinations within Tuscany and Liguria.

Answer 9

We have travelled to Italy 9 times since 1991, and Lucca is one of our favorite cities.  We've stayed in the area 3 times, always renting villas outside of town.  Go find it on Google Earth and you'll get something of an idea of the city.

Many towns in Tuscany are classic hill towns with city walls that you see, but could never really follow.  Lucca is quite different, the walls are surrounded by enormous green space and the town is flat.  You can take a very nice walk (or bike ride) around the top of the walls, which are 2.5 miles total length for one circuit.

Lucca has some tourist spots, but is less touristed than many of the places in Tuscany.  If you stay there, you are a reasonable train ride to Florence (the best way to get there) and a quick run to both Pisa and Cinque Terre, two other spots you might want to visit.

There are good restaurants in and around the town.  There are also a number of grand villas nearby that are interesting to tour.

If you want to find a villa to rent in the area, I recommend cuendet.com as one good source of week long rentals.  If you do that you'll want a car as well.

Answer 10

i have traveled all around Italy and Europe and Africa and to me Lucca wasnt really the best, but I guess the city itself is okay. Me and my friends rented electric bikes and drove all over the city within 3 hours. It was alot of fun! You get to see more in a shorter amount of time and its fun riding around like an Italian. The cost was 3 euro (approx. 4$) per hour.