Slow Travel Lucca

Most visitors travel through Lucca, Italy for a day or maybe a week. We chose to stay for an entire month. This was our landing destination after our cruise. When you Slow Travel, it is common to spend several weeks to several months in any location. Slow travel is about fitting into the routine of a location to learn about the people, the culture, and lifestyles that create the heartbeat of a destination.

Originally, we had reserved an apartment through VRBO inside the ancient walls and were excited to ride or walk on the wall every day. But as our trip drew near, the host failed to respond to us or the VRBO company, so we cancelled that apartment. Was it divine intervention?

Rebooking was a challenge at the same price point because we were three months from our check-in date, so we bit the bullet and raised our accommodation budget from $1600/month to $1800/month. Hopefully, it will rebalance later. That’s when we found Nello’s Place on Airbnb.

The apartment was located outside the walls of Lucca, but there was a “secret” passage through the wall from this side of the city. Each day we walked a couple blocks and crossed through our “secret passage” to the adventure inside.

Once inside the walls, we walked and biked on top of the walls. We visited the museums and churches. We shopped in the town squares and small stores. Though not daily, we dearly enjoyed the espresso, gelato, and restaurants.

Since the apartment is on the street outside the walls, this gave us a chance to enjoy the Lucchese life too. A school was on the same block as the apartment and daily we listened to the children’s laughter reverberate off the stone walls. We also experienced the quiet during their spring break week. One night we heard loud popping, then realized it was fireworks. We suspected it was coming from the soccer stadium.

When we rented a car to travel through the Tuscan countryside, we had to think like the Lucchese people who go about their daily lives. We had to use the one-way streets around the apartment and not hit a pedestrian or bicyclist. We had to use the gate opener to park the car in the community space and make sure the neighbor had enough space for his car too. We had to remember to put out the recycling in advance. Italy has an amazing curbside recycle program (organics, paper, glass, unsorted waste and multi-material [plastic, metal, packaging]). It made us feel like part of the community.

As needed, we walked half a mile each way to the local grocery stores where we had to observe the “rules” of the shopping several times before we trialed them ourselves. For example, Where do we get the labels for our bread or produce? How do the self-check outs work? In addition to shopping, we also had to refill prescriptions at the pharmacy and get a haircut. The pharmacists had limited English skills, and the stylists had none, so this was our burden to embrace.

Living for 30 days as a slow traveler gives you a ground-level experience of life. We are not Lucchese, but for a while we walked in their shoes and observed their similarities.