My driving destination was the town of Lucca to the north, a good 3 hour drive. Thanks to Google Earth, I had pre-experienced my daring drive into the tiny streets of this ancient city several times before I left Dallas. I had done it “from the sky” enough that I felt I could almost drive to my hotel blindfolded. Well, it wasn’t quite that easy, but it sure helped to know ahead of time what things would look like, where the traffic circles would be, where the tight one-way streets would get me to my hotel. It worked like a charm.
And speaking of charm, this city has it in abundance.
Even the simple plazas look like impressionistic paintings from the late 1800’s. If the dappled sunlight weren’t enough, the hundred-year-old sycamore trees offered their speckled brown and white bark. What photos I took here! And the people were probably the most photogenic I’ve seen anywhere in Italy. “All kinds of beauty,” as they say.
The streets were so narrow, that they are best photographed around high noon so you can get at least some sunlight to fall down one side. Lucca is often compared to Pisa (far more industrial) and Florence (far more tourist-bus choked) … and I quickly determined that Lucca is the best of the three. Florence has far more art (Who can compete with the collections of generations of Medici princes?), and Pisa has “the airport,” but Lucca has … ambience.
One very interesting find (and unexpected) lies beneath the church of San Giovanni. It is the site of a well-excavated and very accessible Roman town - - the first Lucca. With well preserved mosaic floors, public baths, plumbing, streets, etc., it’s not the “full city” of the Roman era, but it is a lot of fun to see. It’s like a mini-Pompeii.
