Toscana > Lucca: Casina di Tea

Lucca is one of Tuscany’s most beloved artistic cities, an unskippable part of any tour of the region. Nicknamed the town of a hundred churches on account of its incredible number of places of worship, it is unique among city-states for having maintained its independence up until 1847.

Historical circumstances demanded that Lucca fortify itself, and so its immense artistic and architectural heritage is ringed by a massive circuit of defensive walls.

Lucca sits in the centre of the Lucca plain, a breathtaking landscape that was sculpted by the river Serchio and is dotted with medieval towns.

The first thing that the visitor claps eyes on is the magnificent and intact circuit of walls, built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Lucca was built to a medieval plan, and much of its architecture bears witness to the various historical ages that it has lived through. The most notable of these is the Roman amphitheatre – converted into piazza dell’Anfiteatro by architect Lorenzo Nottolini. One of the city’s other jewels is without a doubt its cathedral, the Duomo di San Martino, whose Romanesque façade is strikingly off-kilter: one of the arches in its portico is smaller than the others, cramped for room by the pre-existing bell tower.

As you walk through the city streets, you will also come across the façade of the basilica of San Frediano, and then the piazza and sumptuous church of San Michele. The capitals on the façade of this latter church are sculpted into portraits of Italian heroes, including Garibaldi.

And on a walk through Lucca, the discoveries do not end there. On top of the Guinigi tower – which is open to the public – you will find a little garden, full of trees, and an astonishing panorama over the whole Lucca plain.

Don’t miss the long, narrow Via Fillungo, which contains all the city’s chicest outlets; also make sure you see the rooms of the Palazzo Ducale in Piazza Napoleone. Outside the walls, you will find a beautiful district of Liberty-style villas, just next to the inhabited centre.

If you have more time you can also visit some very important sites in Tuscany and Liguria: Versilia and its beaches, Florence, Pisa, Liguria di Ponente (Lerici, Le Cinque Terre, etc).