LUCCA

The first thing you will see arriving in Lucca are the 16th century thick town walls which are very well preserved and still today surround all the old town: Lucca is the only town in Italy entirely surrounded by walls! You can walk, jog or bike around the city on the wide shaded tree-lined avenue atop the walls.
Lucca is a beautiful little Tuscan town with still its characteristic medieval structure, still maintaining ancient Roman settings, traces of Gothic nobility and also some of Italy´s finest Renaissance architecture... towers and campaniles, gardens, internal courtyards of old houses enrich its old town centre. Lucca is also called the "town with one hundred churches".The Romanesque cathedral contains a famous relic. Rising alongside the Duomo, a medieval complex museum is housing miniature codices, jewelry, paintings, liturgical dresses, sculptures and wooden crosses: a patrimony of inestimable artistic and historical value.
Superb dining, chic boutiques and restaurants, easygoing bar-cafes, antique markets, old craftsmen shops, classical and rock music festivals: Lucca is a wealthy and colorful town that draws a more discerning tourist than Florence or Pisa. It is sufficiently off the beaten track to have kept its civility and reserve.
Lucca ´s economy is based on agricultural produce from the fertile surrounding countryside (olives, fruit, cereals, grapes). Since 1500, Lucca had strict regulations for oil production and the special organoleptic qualities of Lucca´s olive oil were very well known. Today by IGP and DOP standards, referring only to olive-growing companies operating in the province, Lucca olive oil takes an importance and international interest. The oil can be purchased and tasted directly at oil mills, as well as on the market and at rural houses.
Lucca is a city of merchants who know how to woo the visitor and the shopper, but the pace of life varies between slow and slower.
In the area of Lucca you may admire some Villas and Gardens are mostly from 16th century, with monumental avenues, vast and pompous gardens, ponds, fountains, green amphitheaters, and exquisite Baroque facades.
For those who wish to swim in the sea, Lucca gives very easy access to the coastal strip of Versilia: Apuane mountain parks, splendid countryside and endless beaches less than half an hour away.
Lucca is one of Tuscany´s best-kept secrets.

HOW TO GET TO LUCCA
By car: you can easily reach Lucca from the A11 (from Florence) and by SS12 (from Pisa)
By train: Lucca railway station is half an hour train from Pisa.
By plane: Florence and Pisa Airports are both less than an hour drive