Lucca Travel Guide: Tuscany at its Best
Lucca how nice you were! This is now one of those charming Tuscan towns you’ll never want to leave. For the food alone, it is worth a visit. Because holy craptarts we really couldn’t get enough of the fresh pastas, Tuscan wines and delicious gelato. Moreover, the center of Lucca is nice and compact and you can do everything on foot. Ideal for immediately burning some kcal from all that food ;p. In total, we stayed in Lucca for 4 days where – you guessed it – we got to know the city mostly terrace hopping. In this article, we share the best and, above all, the tastiest travel tips for Lucca.
What to do in Lucca
What to do especially a lot in Lucca is not much. Stroll around and occasionally plop down at an Osteria. Life in Lucca is not so bad. Of course, later in the article we also share our best Lucca hotspots and there are lots of them.
- Food tour: if you want a little more guidance during your hotspot hunt in Lucca, then a food tour is really for you. I think this is the perfect way to get to know a city. Tip! Plan your food tour right at the beginning of your vacation/city trip so you know exactly where to go for the remaining days.
- Cooking class: how fun to take home a bit of Tuscany with a cooking class. Learn real Tuscan cooking during a cooking class.
- Visit Pisa: We actually didn’t read that many positive stories about Pisa. Still, we were eager to visit the city. While we’re at it p. Unfortunately, something went completely wrong in finding the train station and buying the ticket. Still, you can combine Lucca and Pisa just fine. In fact, by train it is only half an hour.
- Climb the Guinigi Tower for spectacular views
- Visit the Cathedral Of Lucca
- Take a seat on one of the terraces in Piazza dell’Anfiteatro
- Find adventure and go rafting or climb between rocks with a day of canyoning
- Or just unwind completely with a spa day at Bagni di Lucca
Hotspots & food in
Best time to travel to Lucca
The best travel time for Lucca is in spring or summer. In high season, however, it can get terribly crowded. We were there in September and then it was wonderfully quiet. This is also the month of harvesting, making it a little less green, but the scenery is still beautiful.
Transportation in Lucca
The center of Lucca is largely car-free and parking can be quite pricey and inconvenient. We therefore decided to go by bicycle. If you don’t have a bike with you, public transportation is also a good and affordable option.
Which budget do i need in Lucca?
Oops…. the budget in Lucca we kind of lost sight of because of all the delicious food. We normally use a daily budget between 60 – 70 euros. This includes. food, groceries, gasoline and accommodation. Really just fine. Then we even go somewhere for a bite to eat almost daily. But in Lucca we kind of ignored this budget, because we liked the city too much. Might as well.
We stayed a total of 4 days in Lucca and spent a total of just over 300 euros (still fine), a daily budget of 75 euros approximately.
View the fee schedule here:
- Gasoline € 40.00
- Groceries €26.85
- Dinner out € 166.40
- Camping €75.00
Day budget +camping Lucca: 50 – 100 euros per day
Day budget +hotel Lucca: 85 – 150 euros per day
Practical information about Lucca
- Parking in Lucca can be quite tricky and pricey. You can catch the bus or train to the city from several places. The connections are very good and affordable.
- With an ACSI discount card, you often get discounts at campsites in the off-season.
- If you take the dog with you, you are required to carry a muzzle. Dogs must wear this in public places. Yet we almost never saw dogs with a muzzle and never did it with our dog. Although we do have a stick old pug with epilepsy who was in backpack most of the time so expect most people were understanding of this. With a larger dog, this may be different anyway.
- For the nicest camping spot, we always use the app Park4night & camper contact
- The same obligations apply in the car as in the Netherlands. So bring safety jacket and warning triangle!
- In Italy, many stores, restaurants and supermarkets are often closed at noon. Something we forgot almost every day.
- There is currently (Oct. 2020) mouth guard duty in place due to Corona.
- Download foreign affairs app to keep up to date with latest developments
What are nice places to stay in Lucca?
Yessssss! We found a really super cool camping spot near Lucca. Just 7 km by bike from the city center, you will find the campsite La Valle in a wooded area. A small campground run by an enthusiastic young man. The sites are quite simple, but the hospitality is tremendous. The plumbing is also spotless and you even have a small pool. In the distance from your spot you have a great view of the Tuscan hills. We say big fat tip!
Read more about Camping La Valle here.
If you don’t have your own Cloverfield Camper, take a quick look at our selection of accommodations for Lucca.
How to get to Lucca?
Tuscany is perfect for a road trip. In 2019, we also visited Tuscany and took an amazing road trip of Montepulciano, Piensa, Siena and Volterra. Great! This time we entered the country through the north of Italy, so we decided to drive from Turin to Lucca. A place we had not visited before. What a destination! Highly recommended!
From the Netherlands, it is about a 14-hour drive to Tuscany, without stopping. Most people combine the drive with a stop in Germany or Switzerland. We really came from France, which is also a really nice combination. So you can also make a stop in the north, such as South Tyrol or Turin. It is also possible to fly to Florence or Pisa. From both places it is about a 1.5 drive. We definitely recommend you to rent a car so you can properly explore the surroundings of Tuscany.
