THE BEST "STORY BEHIND THE BEAUTY
AND HISTORY"
GUIDEBOOK WE'VE SEEN
Whether one is visiting for a day, or staying for a
month, one of the best things to do in Lucca is to walk its narrow streets and
get lost in their beauty.
Lucca is an ancient place, but it is very much alive and
breathing -- and not just with tourists.
Lucca is a functioning town of some 85,000 -- not a
Tuscan Disneyland with a train stop.
The birthplace of Giacomo Puccini, of La Boheme and Madame Butterfly fame, has beloved music fests (we
saw more posters for pop/rock shows than classics during our 2012 visit.)
Cool shoe stores, bakeries and artisanal shops abound.
Bookstalls still exist.
Lindquist dedicates only a half dozen pages to Lucca's
streets -- but only because they are dominated by the more than 100 combined
churches and palaces that he explores in the other sections of his 370-page
guidebook.
"Via Fillungo -- this is Lucca's Main Street, the
shopping center and the thoroughfare for Sunday passeggiata," the author
writes of the best place to take an evening stroll to socialize with neighbors
and friends.
"In Roman times, Via Fillungo was the Cardus
Maximus, the central north-south street. It ran straight north from its
intersection with the Decumanus Maximus to the north gate and then angled
northeasterly up to the bridge across the Serchio," he writes (Decumanus
Maximus being the major east-west road in a town laid out by the Romans.
Lindquist says Via Fillungo gives a glimpse into the
medieval world with "an array of high, wide, ground floor archways, today
filled with glass storefronts, but which in the Middle Ages were open to the
street."
"Do not pass by Caffe di Simo without going
in," the author says of #58, Via Fillungo. "Puccini liked to spend
time there with his friends and it is still the most pleasant place for
afternoon tea. The hot chocolate is famous; it provides a remarkable jolt of
energy."
The Wanderer's Guide to Lucca review
continues tomorrow
-- September4
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