My Lucca Favorites

Time flies as we all know and now Italy is just memory of the past. I loved Italy, I loved the adventure, and the immersion and everything about it and Lucca was such a wonderful place to study Italian.  It's a small enough town to really feel like you are living in a real town rather than a tourist destination.  

Some of my favs of Italy are.....

Concerts.  Lucca is the birthplace of Puccini and you don't ever lose sight of that when you are here--that's his phenomenal foot in the statue above.   There are nightly Puccini concerts in one of the churches...Mondays were my favorite because it's the Puccini and Mozart night every week.  Here in the square with Puccini's house and museum(and statue), I was even lucky enough to come across a free open square concert.  I love the ladies in the window listening to the concert from their room. 

Palazzo Pfanner has a small little garden that you can see from the walls.  It's full of statues, a large fountain and of course, flowers.  I skipped the house and just chose to garden visit and spent hours reading on a bench.

The amphitheater again...just because it's so historical.  There are a few benches and of course lots of cafes (that may or may not cater more towards tourists). 

Piazza San Michele.  This square is the "center" and always has a street performer or two.  It's another great place to sit and read, with a little Mozart or even contemporary music in the background.

My personal reading place.  Sorry to all the tourists who wanted to take a photo without someone sitting under the statue.

I'm not going to lie...I love having access to familiar things.  How cute is this Sephora?

There's always a debate in Italy about the best pizza and the locals like this one.  I tend to prefer the more Napoletana type crust that is thicker and chewier, but for Lucca, this one is tops in my book.  The crust is thinner and bit crispy but full of that awesome wood-fired taste.  I tried a lot of pizza in Lucca to be able to tell you all that this was the best.  There's an inexplicable phenomenon in Italy where pizza crusts and breads are not salted.  Salt girl that I am, I wasn't the biggest fan and I found that many places compensated by over-salting the pizza sauce.  Pizza da Felice did not.

They whack off a piece with their ginormo knife and you pay by the kilo.

Lucca is also known for their chickpea flour pizza--the crunchy, salty cheese makes it all happen. 

La Grotta has salames, hams and pestos.  To me, it was the place to pick up fresh mozzarella.

Best bread in the city at Forno a Vapore although I really bought only focaccia which was outstanding.  There's a generous sprinkling of salt on focaccia.

And this little square right off of Via Buia, is a great place to people watch....locals bring their water bottles to fill.

No bottle, no problem.  There's also a green grocer here where I bought fruits and veggies.

This cafe is outside the city walls near the school but I had to include it.  Marco and his beautiful wife serve up the best cafes and cornettos I found in all of Italy.  This was my daily go-to place. 

If you are in Lucca, it only makes sense to take advantage of one of the many towers available for climbing.  I chose to climb Guinigi Tower for views of the terra cotta skylines across this beautiful city.  

And of course, some things are just fun little surprises you encounter while exploring a city.  I am already missing Lucca.