Italy - Lucca

Puccini's Hometown
The city of Lucca sits behind imposing walls, built during the Renaissance to keep the hordes from their gold.

We toured on foot and crossed from one side to another in less than an hour.

Puccini is a proud son.  There is a statue of him outside of his house in a piazza near the center of the city.

It's a town that doesn't appear to cater to tourists - a lot of the shops sell useful things such as a thousand and one varieties of sharp cutting tool.

We sampled the local cuisine - wild boar pasta.  We also had some Lucchese almond cookies called "Brutti ma Buoni" which translate as Ugly but Good.  Perfectly named.

I feigned my best indifferent Italian pose for the paparazzo I was traveling with.  She never stops snapping.

San Michele church resembles Milan's duomo - it looks like a large frosted wedding cake.

Most interesting to me was Guinigi tower with it's halo of oak trees.

We climbed the twenty stories on a full stomach to take in the view.

The breeze was strong.  How the trees survive at this height I don't know.

To the north we got a nice view of the Garfagnana mountains and to the south, the Pisa valley.

It's a handsome, if claustrophobic town.  

After 500 years of being an independent republic they made a generous offer to Napoleon to be administered rather than overtaken.  Napoleon accepted and installed his sister Elisa as queen.

She grew bored quickly and missed Paris' wide tree lined boulevards so she had the tops of the walls flattened and trees planted.

The walls have become the defining feature of the town.  They are at least 40 feet wide and are completely shaded.  A large portion of the town takes advantage.  We saw people walking, cycling, roller blading and sitting on the benches under the trees.