Lucca city
It has written that the lucchese built their landscape "as if their only concern was whit beauty": a varied and generous landscape, as full of life as it is of peacefulness, woodland paths, valleys and picturesque villages. A luxuriant island of history situated in the centre of north-west Tuscany, an enviable position that places it only a few minutes from the Versilia coast - conveniently reached by an 18 km motorway, 30 minutes by car from Florence, on the border whit Pisa, surrounded by the apennine mountains and by the spurs of the Apuan Alps, only a few kilometres the snow-covered slopes of Abetone, from the spas at Bagni di Lucca and Montecatini, and the Pinocchio Park at Collodi.
A city state for over 600 years, Lucca nestles behind its centuries-old walls and is revealed a little at a time. The various eras have left their historical imprint of harmonious structures which are well preserved and deciphe-rable to this day, and although it can be crossed in about ten minutes on foot, a visit to Lucca cannot be rushed as everything in must be seen.
The centre of the Lucca
The heart of the Lucca city is built on an almost uninterrupted series of piazzas, churches and palaces joined together by a web of narrow street and irregular paths which open unexpectedly onto important works of art and monuments. The Palazzo Ducale in Lucca its recently restored reception rooms, Ademollo, Staffieri and Ammannati, are now open to the public, looks onto Piazza Napoleone of Lucca which in its turn leads into Piazza del Giglio where the 19th century neoclassical theatre of the same name is evidence of Lucca great musical tradition as represented by Puccini, Catalani, Boccherini and Gemignani.