We had an apartment in Lucca for this entire week. Nice deal, really nice modern apartment, and in fact, we spent about half of all our time in this town.

The long history of Lucca is as full of turmoil as the history of what is now the unified country of Italy. If you paid attention in history class (I didn't), Italy was unified as one politcal country in about 1861. Before then it was a patchwork of competing, often warring provinces. Happily, today Lucca is a very quaint tourist destination.

Lucca is surrounded by an incredibly solid wall that was built centuries ago (the wall to 116 years to complete), to defend it from an anticipated act from Florence. The attack never happened, and today the wall (about 100 - 200 feet thick) makes a lovely 2.5mile walking/biking path. Inside the wall is "old" Lucca, which is touristy. Outside is where today's Lucca population really lives.