First up this week was Lucca. What a fun city, and the size of Lucca is perfect to fill an entire afternoon. We started with a stroll through town and then up the local clock tower. The giant hand-wound Swiss clock has not stopped since 1754. It clangs every quarter hour and gave the kids quite a jolt when it rang only a few feet above our heads. Next was another tower, Torre Guinigi. What makes this family tower unique is that it still has a little garden with trees at the top. Very few of these towers still remain in the various hill towns, but back 500-1000 years ago they dominated the skyline. Each wealthy family built a tower taller than the next to protect themselves from attack. The front door was usually on the second floor, reached by a ladder that could be raised once inside. The ground floor was the shop, then single rooms stacked on top of each other with the kitchen on top for fire safety. The roof was generally a vegetable garden with trees for shade. Later these wealthy city folk traded their towers for the country estate and villa. But as much fun as we had climbing, our favorite thing about Lucca was the biking. In 1799 Napoleon gave Lucca to his sister as a gift. It was later passed on to his widow, whom is credited with adding a feminine touch and creating a city park around the entire 2.5-mile fortified wall. It had been awhile since we’d been on bikes, and what a perfect spot to do it.
Lucca's main piazza is circular and sits on the footprint of what was once a 10,000 seat Roman Coliseum. After the fall of Rome, it was gradually pillaged for it's stones and replaced by the piazza.
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Don't ask me what this cat was fixated on but he wouldn't move.
