Lucca 2 october 2019

Many Italian cities were once surrounded by a defensive wall. Most of these medieval walls have been destroyed or at least significantly modified as the cities became more modern. Lucca, however, still has its city wall completely intact, and it’s a great pleasure to walk all the way around on the top. In the evening, many locals stroll, bike, run, skate, or scooter along the broad path. (Electric scooters have arrived.) I hope this gives you an idea of the peaceful bulk of the wall:

Like every other city frequented by tourists, Lucca has churches and towers. Here’s the cathedral:

Churches have instructive images to help people remember what’s important. In the case of this tomb, perhaps the skull In the shadow is meant to remind us that the entombed person is, in fact, dead.

Moving along, here’s our favorite tower, which has genuine trees at the top:

It’s only 230 steps to the top, so not the most challenging tower we’ve ever climbed, but the views are still fine, even on a day that began with a thunderstorm:

In addition to climbing at least one tower in every trip, we also are pulled by invisible magnets into large bookstores. Mondadori is a big chain, and I like their store in Lucca with its skylight and columns:

The completely unexpected sight of the day was a very large papier-maché project located under a span of the city wall. Though it’s not in any sort of religious setting, I’ll call it Mother and Child.