Italy
Lucca
Renaissance walls wide enough to cycle on, encircling a city where Puccini's piano still sits open.
The walls are wide enough to cycle on, shaded by plane trees, with the city's terracotta rooftops spread below on one side and the Tuscan hills on the other. Inside, Lucca's streets follow Roman and medieval lines — narrow, curving, punctuated by piazzas that appear like clearings in a stone forest. Puccini's birthplace sits on one of them, his piano still positioned as if he might return.
Lucca is a walled city in Tuscany, Italy, distinguished by its remarkably intact Renaissance ramparts — a 4.2-kilometre circuit completed in the 17th century and never breached in battle, later converted into a tree-lined promenade that is now the city's most distinctive feature. The Piazza dell'Anfiteatro preserves the oval footprint of a Roman amphitheatre in its surrounding buildings, their facades curved to match the arena that once stood here. Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca in 1858, and his house on Corte San Lorenzo is now a museum housing his Steinway piano and original manuscripts. The city hosts Lucca Comics & Games each autumn, the largest comics festival in Europe, which transforms the medieval streets for four days. Lucca produces its own olive oil, buccellato bread — an anise-flavoured ring cake — and farro from the nearby Garfagnana hills.
Solo
Lucca's walls create a natural boundary for aimless wandering — you cannot get lost in any meaningful sense. Rent a bicycle, ride the ramparts, duck into churches, and eat buccellato from the bakery that has sold it since the 1800s.
Couple
The wall-top promenade at sunset, dinner in a piazza shaped by a Roman amphitheatre, and a morning at Puccini's house — Lucca is cultured without being crowded, romantic without trying.
Family
Cycling the walls is the family activity in Lucca. The circuit is flat, car-free, and shaded by old trees. Below, the piazzas offer gelato stops, and the amphitheatre piazza's oval shape alone sparks a child's imagination.
- Cycle hire is available at several points along the city walls — the 4km circuit on top takes under 30 minutes at a slow pace, the trees planted on the rampart creating a canopy.
- Casa Puccini preserves the composer's birthplace with original piano, manuscripts, and the room where he died — a small museum entirely devoted to one person.
- The city has a Roman amphitheatre whose oval plan was preserved by medieval houses built into its walls — the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro follows the exact curve.
- The Torre Guinigi — a medieval tower with oak trees growing from its top — is visible from across the city and climbable for a view over the rooftops.
Buccellato, sweet anise bread sold in the same shop since the 1800s.
Tordelli lucchesi, meat-stuffed pasta in ragù, bigger and bolder than Florentine equivalents.
Farro soup from the Garfagnana hills, the ancient grain chewy and nutty.
Silverton
Australia
A ghost town where Mad Max was filmed — the Mundi Mundi lookout shows Earth's curvature.
Queenstown
Australia
A century of smelting stripped every tree, leaving a moonscape of orange and grey lunar terrain.
Niagara Falls
Canada
A city built on catastrophe — 168,000 cubic metres per minute plunging off a cliff.
Rye
England
Cobblestoned lanes so steep and crooked even the houses lean in to listen.
Venice
Italy
Dawn light on a silent canal where only your footsteps echo on wet stone.
Cinque Terre
Italy
Five villages clamped to sea cliffs, connected by footpaths through terraced vineyards above surf.
Lake Como
Italy
Cypress-lined shores where water mirrors snow-capped peaks and silk merchants built their palaces.
Florence
Italy
Terracotta rooftops from Brunelleschi's dome, the Arno gold at sunset, gelato in every piazza.