Lucca was certainly not as famous as Florence or Pisa. I think that might have been what made it even more appealing. It was not somewhere a typical traveler would have visited if they were spending only a few days in Tuscany. We would have respite from the hordes of tourists and could slow down to the pace of our beautiful surroundings.
The city is not without its own charms though; they were simply lesser known.
There were two notable stand-outs in Lucca. The first was the tree-topped Torre Guinigi. The tower, crowned with a copse of holm oaks and one of the few remaining of its kind, was built by the Guinigi family in the 14th century as a symbol of wealth and prestige. It is the most striking feature of the Lucchese skyline and can be seen from nearly every corner of the old town.
Lucca’s second (and arguably the best by some accounts) claim to fame was that the city was the birthplace of the famous Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. Although I am mostly indifferent to opera, the aria “O Mio Babbino Caro” from his opera Gianni Schicchi somehow makes me long dreamily for the Tuscan countryside whenever it is played.
If ever there was a sign that I might someday return to live in Lucca, it was the blooming Frangipanis (“Plumeria” as they are known in Hawaii) at the Lucca Botanical Garden. Here on the other side of the world, in a country I have never been, I smelled the unmistakable fragrance of my childhood.
SOBERING FACT. Nicola, our AirBnb host, had difficulty describing the plant Finocchio to us. In English, we know it as fennel. But it has a more notorious connotation in Italian slang: faggot. It was once believed that in the early history of Italy, townspeople would lay fronds of the plant at the foot of male homosexuals being burned at the stake; the anise-like scent masking the aroma of burning flesh and making the fires blaze stronger and longer.
