Lucca

Lucca is our favorite city. When we discovered it, we knew that this was where we needed to live. Faye and Max moved immediately from their apartment in Florence, and eventually lived in a number of apartments in and around Lucca while we were purchasing and restoring our home in nearby Benabbio. Surrounded by its awsome medieval wall of defense, Lucca has developed into a wealthy and chic Italian city. Through enlightened leadership, Lucca has become an excellent example of the melding of thousands of years of culture with high quality of living. Well organized and managed, Lucca has banned auto traffic within the wall, thus making the entire city a pedestrian mall. Some cultural event is happening just about every week of the year. Sometime, ask me about the two fully uniformed and equiped medieval armies that marched into Lucca at dusk on our first night in town. Approaching from opposite sides of town, they marched to the din of trumpets and drums and rattling armor and mail with the intent of battling each other in the Piazza San Michele. Fortunately, it was a giant cocktail party rather than battle that occurred.