Italy · Self-guided walk
Lucca in one walk 8 sights, 45 minutes
A self-guided walking tour of the Lucca Old Town: 8 sights on one 3.1 km loop, about 45 minutes on foot, back where you started.
No two days to spare? Here is the short version: the big sights in one loop. I would take longer. I always take longer.
At a glance
The walk in numbers.
- Distance
- 3.1 km, a loop
- Time
- about 45 minutes of walking at 4 km/h, plus however long you stop
- Sights
- 8
- Start and finish
- Cattedrale di San Martino
- Steps
- no streets with steps on the route
- Cost
- free: no guide, no booking, no tip
The route
Map of the Lucca walk: 8 stops, one loop.
The gold line is the walk. The numbers are the stops, in the order you reach them. The pale lines are every other street in the Old Town.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
The stops
8 sights in Lucca, in walking order.
Each stop says how far the next one is and which streets take you there.
1. Cattedrale di San Martino
the start · inside open Mon–Sat 09:30–18:00, Sun 12:00–18:00
Go along the columns under the portico one at a time. Not one of them matches its neighbour, nobody signed them, and the whole row takes a minute. Then look up, because the thing sitting above them is not symmetrical, and it was not an accident.
Next: Piazza Napoleone, 250 m, about 4 min, along Piazza Antelminelli, Via del Duomo.
2. Piazza Napoleone
about 4 minutes of walking from the start
The biggest open ground inside the wall, and at noon in July the only shade in it worth having. In summer a stage goes up and the town turns out for it. The long building down one side is where this place was governed from, and it still looks like it knows that.
Next: San Michele in Foro, 320 m, about 5 min, along Piazza Napoleone, Via Vittorio Veneto, Via Calderia.
3. San Michele in Foro
about 8 minutes of walking from the start
The wall you are looking at is taller than the building behind it. Walk round the side and you can see daylight through the top of it. Then get back across the square and look at the very top, where something is worth the crick in your neck.
Next: Basilica di San Frediano, 340 m, about 5 min, along Via Calderia, Via Cesare Battisti.
4. Basilica di San Frediano
about 14 minutes of walking from the start · inside open Mon–Fri 09:30–16:30, Sat 09:30–17:00, Sun 09:30–16:30
The upper half of this one is glass and gold, and there is far too much of it to take in from the doorstep. Cross the square, look from over there, then come back. Pick a day with sun in it. Under a grey sky it is a wall.
Next: Piazza Anfiteatro, 230 m, about 3 min, along Via San Frediano, Vicolo San Frediano, Piazza Anfiteatro.
5. Piazza Anfiteatro
about 17 minutes of walking from the start
The only ways in are short tunnels beneath the buildings, and going through one is the entire point. Out there you are in an ordinary lane. Ten paces later you are held in a ring and there is nothing rectangular left anywhere. Come early, before the tables go out.
Next: Torre Guinigi, 230 m, about 3 min, along Piazza Anfiteatro, Via Canuleia, Via delle Chiavi d'oro.
6. Torre Guinigi
about 21 minutes of walking from the start
There are trees on the roof. Real ones, in real soil, at the end of a climb with no lift in it. Get up there and the whole level lies out flat under you, and you will spend a while working out which lane you were just eating.
Next: Chiesa di San Francesco, 550 m, about 8 min, along Via delle Chiavi d'oro, Via Antonio Mordini, Via Della Fratta, Piazza San Francesco, Via della Quarquonia.
Lunch break
Il Mecenate, Via del Fosso 94, about 40 m off the route, open Wed–Sun 12:30–15:00, 19:30–22:30, Mon–Tue closed.
A trattoria in an old dye works along the Fosso, the canal through town. More on what to eat in Lucca.
7. Chiesa di San Francesco
about 29 minutes of walking from the start
The space in front of this one is the widest open ground inside the wall, and after the tight lanes it feels like coming up for air. Sit on the steps if your legs want it. Behind it there is a cloister, and the people using it now are not the ones it was built for.
Next: Porta Elisa, 390 m, about 6 min, along Via del Bastardo, Via Brunero Paoli, Via dei Bacchettoni.
8. Porta Elisa
about 35 minutes of walking from the start
Come in through this one and the way ahead of you does not bend once. It runs clean across town and out the far side, which is a Roman idea of a road and nothing like the lanes it crosses. The name cut over the arch is the odd one out on this wall. Walk under it and find out why.
Back to the start: Cattedrale di San Martino, 800 m, about 12 min, along Via Elisa, Via Santa Croce, Via della Rosa, Via dell'Arcivescovato.
Every stop counts from the street; the hours are for going inside. Opening hours from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors. Check before you go.
After the walk
The rest of Lucca.
This loop is 8 sights. The Old Town is 217 streets, and I have opinions about all of them. Every street of the Lucca Old Town, with what to eat and where.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone: every street is a line of dots you collect by walking it, and the phone stays in your pocket. Your first city is free.