Beyond Florence: Lucca, the City Inside the Walls Where Everyone Rides a Bicycle

Lucca is one of the few Italian cities where the Renaissance walls have survived completely intact around their entire perimeter: four kilometres of tree-lined bastions forming a continuous ring, now transformed into a linear park where the locals cycle, run, and stroll — looking out over the city on one side and open countryside on the other. It is the finest walk in Tuscany, and you will almost certainly make it in near-solitude.

Inside the walls, the historic centre is a dense weave of Roman streets, Romanesque churches, and Renaissance palazzi, best explored on foot or by bicycle — the preferred mode of transport for the people of Lucca. Piazza dell'Anfiteatro is built on the foundations of the Roman amphitheatre: the houses follow the elliptical shape of the arena, creating an enclosed square that opens through four arched passages — a magical place, especially in the morning when the cafés set out their tables.

The Romanesque churches are Lucca's great treasure: San Michele in Foro, with its façade of stacked loggias crowned by the statue of the archangel, is a masterpiece of the Pisan-Lucchese Romanesque. San Frediano, with its golden mosaic façade, is one of the oldest churches in the city. The Duomo of San Martino houses the Volto Santo — a cedar-wood crucifix that tradition attributes to Nicodemus — and the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto, carved by Jacopo della Quercia with a tenderness that still moves visitors six hundred years on.

The Torre Guinigi — with its rooftop garden of holm oaks — is the symbol of Lucca: climb it for views over the red rooftops and the mountains of the Garfagnana. The Torre delle Ore, nearby, offers a complementary perspective, and its clock mechanism is still running.

Lucca is also a musical city: the birthplace of Giacomo Puccini, whose family home in Corte San Lorenzo is now a museum. The Lucca Summer Festival brings international stars to perform beneath the walls each year, in one of Italy's most atmospheric open-air venues.

Eating in Lucca is simple and good: tordelli lucchesi (meat-filled pasta with ragù), Garfagnana farro soup, buccellato (the local sweet bread with raisins and anise), and the extra-virgin olive oil from the Lucchese hills — among the finest in Tuscany. Prices are considerably lower than Florence.

Lucca is reachable from Florence in one hour twenty minutes by regional train, from Pisa in thirty minutes. Pisa airport is forty minutes away. Renting a bicycle at the station is the first thing to do.

Practical guides

• How to get to Lucca: complete transport guide
• What to see in Lucca in 2 days
• Where to stay in Lucca: neighborhoods, accommodation and practical tips
• Where to eat in Lucca: tordelli, buccellato and osterias within the walls