Lucca: A timeless Tuscan day trip

By Alice Adams

Florence is a beautiful city, but part of the attraction of studying here is… well, leaving.

That is, exploring other parts of Italy, maybe even venturing out of the country to the rest of Europe and beyond. It’s lovely to spend a weekend day enjoying all Florence has to offer – its museums, dining, architecture, and everything else – but for many students, it becomes a year of adventure and world travel.

Back in September, I wasn’t sure where to begin; never before had the world been so close at hand. Back home, it’s possible to drive five hours and still be in my home state of Pennsylvania, but here, I can reach a completely new language and culture in that same amount of time. Even within Italy, an hour in any direction will get you someplace entirely different. So that was where I chose to begin.

I figured the best way to grow accustomed to traveling here was to pick somewhere close, within the same country I’d been working on adjusting to. I wanted a reliable trip as I got used to the train system and all its lovely labor strikes, as well as navigating around a non-English dominant location. In other words, I wanted something easy.

A little under an hour-and-a-half train ride from Florence is the quaint, historic town of Lucca. I knew Lucca was a popular spot, not too far away and easily doable in just one day. The train, though delayed by five or ten minutes, was easy enough to find at the Santa Maria Novella station; all I had to do was wait for my train to appear on the ‘Arrivals’ board with a designated platform, wait until it showed up, take a seat, and ride – hopefully not falling asleep and missing my stop. I didn’t, though, and found myself just outside the city walls.

Lucca was easy to take in, with its smooth, sunset-colored buildings and relaxed flow of pedestrians. It was fairly crowded with tourists, but not suffocating. With more green space, larger streets, and a more open sense of movement, Lucca was a breath of fresh air from the big city.

We started our day at quaint, atmospheric Caffè Santa Zita, with its famous flower-shaped croissants and other endearing treats and drinks. We continued to the Museo della Tortura – the Torture Museum – a must-see for the morbidly curious. It contains a catalog of centuries’ worth of torture gear, detailing Europe’s storied legal and cultural history going way back to the Middle Ages.

We then poked our heads into Lucca’s Chiesa di San Michele in Foro, the famous basilica decorated with historic altars and pieces of artwork, and also containing the preserved body of San Davino Armeno, an 11th-century saint who died in Lucca during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Afterward, we continued to the Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi, a well-preserved Baroque-style palace built in the 17th century by Italy’s aristocratic Mansi family. It contains a tapestry and art collection, as well as regal furniture from more recent centuries.

We finished the day with lunch and gelato, then took an early-evening train home, leaving me looking forward to the next time I get to relax into a train seat and know I’m headed toward somewhere just as exciting.

I could easily plan another trip to Lucca. There are plenty of museums, shops, and places to eat in town. It also boasts a wall around the perimeter of the city which allows you to see it from a new perspective, an important recommendation to anyone considering going.

Lucca encapsulates well the Tuscan colors and culture, the deep Italian roots in culture, art, and religion. But you don’t have to be an expert in any of this to enjoy what the town has to offer.

Here’s to more trips around Tuscany and far past it.