Our day in Lucca, Italy!

As mentioned in our previous post, one of the reasons we loved our first agriturismo in Tuscany was because it was close to a number of different cities and towns in the area. One of the days we decided to head to Lucca, which was only about 20km west of where we were staying.

To give you a little background, Lucca is a town of about 90,000 residents, and has a ton of history. It was founded in the 3^rd century BC and has lots of architecture and churches that are hundreds and hundreds of years old. The thing that Lucca is most known for is the wall that surrounds the city, which was built for protection in the 1500s and 1600s. Now people call walk, bike and enjoy the city on top of the walls (much like the High Line in New York city!).

I didn’t have any preconceptions going into Lucca, and didn’t know if I would love it or hate it or feel meh about it. And, we loved it! It’s a really small town, but it so cute and historical. But, to start with, there are a lot of churches (welcome to Europe, right?).

They were all of course beautiful but we don’t really get our kicks from visiting churches so we didn’t spend too much time exploring them. Instead we walked and walked around the city and its super cute streets. Exploring Lucca reminded me a lot of exploring the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona, probably because of its beautiful tall, old buildings (relatively, only about 4-5 stories high) and narrow streets/alleys.

There is so much cute shopping in this city, and, proudly I didn’t buy one thing! I would have to say, it’s mostly because it meant I would have to carry it for the next five months, but still. As we explored we found a fun library, that had a great photo exhibition (which we didn’t get a picture of, boo) and this elegant reading room! I mean this is Europe, and especially Italy, where there are things that are hundreds of years old all over the place, but it still would be neat to be studying in this bright white room with an old school fresco in it.

Another cool area of town was where the old amphitheater was. Because the amphitheater was set in here, the buildings around the area were built in an oval, with the only access to the middle being covered archways. The amphitheater is long gone but the buildings still remain in this layout, which I thought was so fun and neat. Especially since the inside area has now been filled with cute cafes and bars!

Afterwards we headed to the Pfanner mansion, which was located on the edge of the walled town. The Pfanners were a hugely important family in Lucca’s history – one of the family members started the first beer garden in town (very important), another family member led the Red Cross and a third was mayor of the city. As you can imagine, this made them financially successful as well, and they left behind their beautiful mansions and gardens for residents and tourists to see.

The gardens were beautiful and the apartment was ornate, and there were cool displays of medical instruments from the early 1900s (don’t worry, I spared you the pictures of those – imagining those being used on our bodies made our stomachs turn). It was a fun stop for sure! (And man, look at that vanity with his and hers sinks, that’s how you know they were living in luxury).

And then, our final activity in Lucca was biking the city walls! There were a ton of vendors you could rent from, and all of them had the same price and the same (wide) selection of bikes available. We decided to do a two-person surrey, which we actually didn’t get a full picture of, sad. Basically we were sitting side-by-side and looked like we were just chilling, but we were pedaling too! Here are some images of two-person surreys on Google images in case it’s helpful.

It was really neat to be on top of the wall, going around the city, and, as you can see, the pathways were quite wide. My favorite part was seeing so many locals using this wall for their daily runs or walks or bike rides. If you lived in Lucca what a nice treat this path is, removed from all the cars and giving you a birds-eye view of your city!

After that we walked back to our car and headed home to our agriturismo. Lucca is such a cute city and I’m glad we took the day to explore it!

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Read more about our time in Italy using the links below:

• Italy Country Recap – What we loved (and didn’t love) in our six weeks there
• Italy – The plan for our six weeks here
• Italy – Visiting Pisa – the Leaning Tower and the Luminara festival
• Italy – Our day in Lucca (you are here!)
• Italy – Life on an agriturismo in Italy Part 1: Montecarlo (Tuscany)
• Italy – Four days in Bologna
• Italy – Life on an agriturismo in Italy Part 2: a vineyard in the Chianti region (Tuscany)
• Italy – Wineries and wine tasting in Chianti
• Italy – One day in Siena!
• Italy – Life on an agriturismo in Italy Part 3: Emilia Romagna
• Italy – Parmigiano Reggiano cheese factory and Balsamic Vinegar producer tours
• Italy – Hiking Cinque Terre
• Italy – Our three days in Florence
• Italy – Brunello wine tasting and visiting thermal baths
• Italy – Our three days in Rome