Lucca: Partying and Picnicking Within Renascence Walls

We had a few sources strongly recommend that we spend a good few days in Lucca. When we asked why Lucca was their favourite place in Italy they said, "There's no big tourist attraction in Lucca, the walled city center, its people, and their way of life is the attraction."

One thing that you just must do in Lucca is get horribly lost in the old town center. We had no problems with that and within entering the old, narrow labyrinth that is old walled in Lucca we found ourselves hopelessly going in circles trying to find our bed and breakfast down roads that only made sense a thousand years ago.

Another thing you must know about Lucca is that the locals are unmistakably friendly and fun loving. In fact the only reason we found our guesthouse was completely by coincidence. A very old Italian man stopped to chat and after a wonderful conversation about the city we found out that he just happened to live in the same old, weather worn palace where our bed and breakfast was to be located. The place we stayed at called La Magnolia B & B and was the most interesting of the places we stayed in Italy- a bed and breakfast in an old, almost falling apart, Renascence era place- fairly cheap, very romantic, and incredibly Italian.

The locals in Lucca love to party- we found that out that first night when we went to eat in the main town square of Piazza Anfiteatro. The party pumping, bar/restaurant with a DJ spinning danceables outside in the old square was served by the local police after about an hour or two of dancing in the old Piazza. Fun time.

The we slept well that night and the next day we were eager to explore the city. We devised a brilliant plan of going to the local deli- picking up some of the local cured meats and cheeses, going to a bakery- picking up some of the local breads, going to a grocery store (or wine shop- if the grocery store was not an option or simply had a poor selection)- and picking up a local wine. Brilliant, delicious, romantic, and very cost effective! We would do this almost everyday from now until the end of our trip but our first full out experience was here in Lucca.

We packed up these supplies and simply walked on top the completely in tacked mura (ancient city walls) and walked around the grassy cannon-ball-proof hundred year old walls until we found the perfect spot for a picnic. The view was beautiful, the man at the deli paired the local creamy sheep cheese marvellously with the ultra-sweet famous local bread called buccellato. We both agreed- this was the best bread we had tried in our young lives- it was sweet with raisins and fennel... so good and matched again so perfectly with the light bodied, somewhat fruitier, Lucchesi wine we had help selecting. MMMmmm....

We spent most of the day on that wall just taking it in. After we made our way back into town, we admired another Pisa Romanesque style church, San Michele in Furo, which just happened to be visible from the window of our new bed at the nothing too special Puccini Hotel. There is a old strange looking copper-green Archangel Michael that locals claim actually flaps its wings during special occasions atop this, once Roman Arena, now cool looking Catholic Church. Guess our visit to the city wasn't that special to Michael? Haha..

That night we stumbled upon a Ben Harper show and realized that we had just missed one of our favourite singers by a few days, Amy Winehouse. We were talking of tracking her down on her tour of Italy. A few days later we would find out that she had died- so sad! We had unsuspectingly arrived during the Lucca Summer Festival- perhaps a reason for the fun loving feel of this city.

Instead of buying $50 tickets to the show we just ate at a restaurant nearby and enjoyed listening to it for free. The sight of locals dancing in the street while we ate local specialties such as Lucca's preferred pasta, tordelli (a local pasta similar to tortellini), with wild boar meat sauce and another type of noodle pasta with white truffles- of course we tried the famous local wine, Colline Lucchesi. The night couldn't have been more fun!

We love Lucca!