Art & culture

Let yourself be surprised by the wealthy cultural and architectural heritage of the Piana di Lucca, one of the most important and beloved art destinations in Tuscany.

Discover the roads of the cities and hamlets of the Piana di Lucca and its many churches, built in a Romanesque-Lucchese architectural style and renowned for their rich sculptural ornamentation, as well as castles, fortresses, towers, and fortifications, testimony of the territory’s glorious history.

Experiences available

Arts and culture accompany the everyday

The Piana di Lucca has been inhabited since antiquity and preserves traces in sometimes unexpected places of the civilizations that have inhabited it and of the ingenuities that, in more recent times have accompanied it into modernity.

We offer you a small “Grand Tour” to be taken, as in the past, slowly, but without losing the possibility of stopping for a break allowing you to enjoy the passion of a journey through History.

A walk through historic centers large and small is in itself a journey through history. Tucked among the fields in the plain, the archaeological park of the Hundred Roman Farms is one of the archaeological finds that takes you back in time to the Roman colonization. The historic center of Lucca, founded precisely in that era, is the result of continuous mutation and settling of centuries of art, culture, ingenuity, travel, and exploration. Sumptuous medieval architecture overlooks the squares of the Roman street grid; protected by the narrow streets, on the other hand, there are the great aristocratic Renaissance palaces with the large windows on the halls and gardens of eighteenth-century palaces; nineteenth-century renovations have brought back from ruin, the tree-lined Guinigi tower and, the Roman amphitheater, one of the most photographed and evocative squares in Tuscany.

And from here again the tale continues in the paths in the hills where, from one parish church to another, we retrace the steps of the pilgrims along the Francigena route to the great hospital of Altopascio and its “Smarrita” lost tower in the center of the Piana di Lucca and on the hills, in the villages that grew up around medieval and Renaissance fortifications and in the many aristocratic villas of the 18th century where the nobles of Lucca brought the city’s splendor to the countryside in small, rich and opulent aristocratic “courts.”

But the most unique stories are certainly found in the museums.  Large and small, they always hold a few surprises.  Combustion engine, silk, paper, hot air balloons are just some of the curiosities to be discovered.

A little Etruscan treasure…… houses of Author’s great musicians, scientists, writers, the places to meet characters from whom to draw inspiration. Imperial Rome, the nineteenth century of Princess Elisa, just some of the historical moments you can experience and travel through history, taste Roman cuisine, travel by hot air balloon, appreciate the scents of bygone eras.