Lucca

Since Monday is a day that most of my classmates have class and I don’t, I decided to wander off on my own little trip to a small medieval town called Lucca. The city is renowned for being completely surrounded by a wall more than 2.5 miles around. Although it’s a little bigger than San Gimignano, Lucca still offers that small town atmosphere that is notorious in Italy. With no one special attraction to see, Lucca offers visitors surprises around every corner.

Ariel view of the city. If I could have taken this picture, I would have. 

I started my day off with just getting myself familiar with the city, going down major streets, finding major churches, and trying to kill time until places started to open for lunch. I had to stop for a pastry at a recommended pasticceria in Piazza Michele where Buccellato Taddeucci stands, a 130-year-old caffè with a stunning 19th century interior. I was planning on going to another famous caffè called Di Simo Caffè where local legendary opera composer Giacomo Puccini used to hang out, but it was closed.

Caffe that Puccini frequented.

Luchesse cuisine offers some of the best meats and fish in Italy, with the fresh supply of seafood coming in daily from Viareggio. I again referred to my Rick Steves guidebook, which brought me to Vecchia Trattoria Buralli, located in quiet Piazza Sant’Agostino. For the fixed price of 10 euro, I had bread, a traditional risotto type dish made with tomatoes and basil, polenta covered in scamorza, roasted potatoes and a caffè. I was absolutely stuffed walking around the rest of the afternoon!

I planned out everything I wanted to see and do for the day to get the right balance of churches and sites in the town. I started off with churches, which Lucca is full of. Beginning with San Martino Cathedral, I bought a combo ticket to tour the church, the museum and the old baptistery-turned church. The Cathedral is nothing much to look at since most of it is under restoration, but then I noticed a strange birdcage like construction on the left side. The cage holds the most revered object in Lucca, The Volto Santo –The Holy Face. The wooden crucifix was allegedly sculpted by Nicodemus in Jerusalem and set afloat on an unmanned boat and landed in Tuscany where it was miraculously carried by wild oxen to Lucca in 782. The jeweled armor that covered the body of Jesus is displayed in the Cathedral museum next door, including the silver shoes, and golden crown.

Volto Santo with replicas of the jeweled clothing.

Right across the Piazza is San Giovanni, which used to be the old baptistery for the Cathedral. There is nothing to look at in the church except for the bare stone walls. You wouldn’t think anything special of this church until you walked to the altar and looked down. Underneath the entire church are the ruins of the old baptistery and ancient Lucca. Descending a set of stairs to the underground maze of ruins, all you have to walk on is a narrow creaky walkway leading you from Roman houses to baths, to workshops with kilns and even the still intact tiled baptismal font. These ruins were by far, way better than those at the Duomo in Florence.

The old baptismal font.

I then decided to take a break and do something a little different. I rented a bike for an hour for only three euro, and rode around the top of the city wall. It was one of the neatest things I’ve done so far. The wall itself is nearly 100 feet thick built into a mound of dirt and faced with bricks to absorb cannonballs. For nearly a century, the city allotted one third of their taxes to be spent building the wall, and proved to be a wise investment. It only took me about 15 minutes to make the loop around, past couples holding hands on a leisurely walk, families out for a bike ride, joggers in their running clothes and of course, the beautiful town of Lucca. I spent the rest of my hour riding through the town itself, discovering more and more around every corner.

Pretty cool bike ride!

I came across Piazza del Anfiteatro, an oval shaped piazza that once held a 10,000 seat ancient Roman amphitheater but was torn apart brick by brick to be used for other building projects. It gives off a ghostly atmosphere and makes you feel like you’re in the middle of the arena getting ready to fight, as all the buildings tower around you like stands. I rode on to San Frediano, a church built by the pope at the time to show up the Cathedral built by Lucca’s Bishop. The pope wanted pilgrims passing through Lucca from northern Europe, to remember to continue on to Rome before spending too much time in Lucca. I continued my bike ride around more side streets in this wonderful city until my hour was up. I was then ready to get off the ground and get a different view of the city.

Walking into the piazza.

One thing you may not know about me is that I love heights. I love climbing and tall buildings, flying, ladders, and towers. So of course, I had to climb not one, but two towers while I was there. The first one was the Clock Tower, Torre delle Ore, which contains a hand-wound Swiss clock. The climb up was probably four times as tight as the tower in San Gimignano and probably half as safe. Since it was still low season, I was the only one in the tower, so there was no line and nobody to wait behind on the narrow stairway. Once at the top, the crouching, pigeon ducking, and head hitting was all worth it. The small 15 foot by 15 foot platform at the top offered the best 360 degree view of the city.

So I descended the same way I came up and walked down the street to the next tower, Torre Guingi, belonging to the Guingi family. This tower was much more accessible and even had a bookstore at the base. At the top, you come to an unexpected tower-top garden made up of several small trees providing lots of shade. The tower is very distinctive from a distance by its unusual arborous top.

Torre Guingi from Torre delle Ore.

After my decent, it was almost time to make my way back to the train station. I decided to stop in a church I had passed by when I was first walking around town, called San Giusto. It was a small church in comparison to the other basilicas and cathedral, but it had a much personal feel to it. I knelt for a few minutes to pray, when an old man comes out from behind the altar, and starts scrapping the wax from beneath the two large candelabras. He saw me, stopped, and came over. He said, “Bravo!” and at first I didn’t understand and was a little confused. He repeated himself and then I understood why he was so happy with me. He probably wasn’t used to seeing anyone actually come in the church to pray rather than take pictures, let alone a twenty year old. It turns out he didn’t speak a word of English, which I always see as a plus so I can practice, and we had a short conversation about where I was from and where I’m studying, etc. It turns out he lives right next door and takes care of the church since there is no dedicated staff. He told me to follow him to the back where the Sacristy was and pulled out a little desktop picture of the image of Our Lady of Lourdes and Bernadette, which is behind the altar. He explained how the statue itself came from Lourdes and the church had gone through many renovations. He turned on all the lights for me to see the full beauty of his little church, which he seemed so proud of. After a few more minutes of chit chat, I had to leave, but he told me that next time I am in Lucca, to stop be to see him, as if the city wasn’t enough! That desktop image of Our Lady sits on my desk right now, and I expect it will do so for a long time, reminding me of my trip to Lucca.