In order to give Mark a break from the somewhat stressful Tuscany mountain driving, we’ve decided to only head down and up our crazy windy road every 2nd day (a day off in between!!) On Wednesday, Sept 17 we did a road trip to Lucca about a 45 minute drive from Benabbio. Our drive on smaller roads was pretty good – traffic was light but there were several places with construction so that slowed us down a bit.
Lucca is called the City of Art and it is well known for its circular centre square called the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro and its very well preserved renaissance era city walls. These walls are so wide that there is a wide walkway on the top that enables you to walk all the way around the old city.
Our first challenge when we arrived was finding a parking space!! It was very busy so we had some fun finding a spot but were eventually successful. We had a short walk to get inside the walled city and from there we explored the narrow streets. There were many shops and restaurants and we had a good morning buying souvenirs and exploring the lovely streets. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant specializing in fresh pasta. It was delicious!!
After lunch we found an English book shop – that was a good find! We also visited the Palazzo Pfanner. It was constructed in 1660 by the Moriconi family (wealthy merchants of Lucca) but very quickly this family had to sell the building. By the middle of the 1800s, the Pfanner family bought the large house and added to it. The family still owns the building and its gardens.
We ended our visit to Lucca with a walk along the top of the wall. It was really nice to walk around the top because it was not very busy (all the tourists were inside the walled city). Trees lined the wide walkway so it was cool and shady for our walk. Lots of people were biking along, walking their dogs or just strolling like us.
The drive home was way more interesting than the drive to Lucca. We took the same route but there must have been a major accident or closure on the highway because the opposite direction traffic was nuts! Big trucks were forced to drive along the narrow streets that wind through towns. At one point a truck with a double trailer passed us and got struck at a corner where it was barely wide enough for 2 cars. I’m not sure what happened but we saw a second double trailered truck stopped in the traffic!! It was quite the mess and we were very thankful to be going in the opposite direction!! We made a stop at a grocery store and then got back to our Airbnb around 5pm! It was a really good visit and we all enjoyed Lucca!
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 