If you are staying on

Things to Do

Many of you are making a holiday of it, and you should. Everything below is within an easy drive of the borgo, in the order we would do them.

25 minutes
Half a day
The walls of Lucca

Hire a bicycle at Porta Santa Maria and ride the four kilometres of Renaissance rampart, then come down for coffee in Piazza dell'Anfiteatro.

40 minutes
Half a day
Pisa, briefly

Yes, the tower. Go early, see the Camposanto next door, which is the better building, and be gone before the coaches arrive.

50 minutes
A full day
Barga and the Serchio valley

A hill town of about four thousand people and one extraordinary cathedral, with the Apuan Alps behind it. Our favourite drive in the region.

35 minutes
An afternoon
The baths at Bagni di Lucca

Thermal water and a steam grotto cut into the rock, much as Byron found it. Book ahead; the Monday after a wedding is not the day to chance it.

1 hr 10
A full day
Wine, in Montecarlo

Closer and quieter than Chianti. Three small estates will pour for you in an afternoon, and one of them is where the wedding wine comes from.

45 minutes
A full day
The coast at Forte dei Marmi

October is out of season, which is the point. Long empty beach, a market on Wednesday, and marble mountains at your back.

Where we eat

Trattoria da Leo
Lunch · €€
Lucca, inside the walls. No bookings, paper tablecloths, the best tordelli in the province.
Lunch · €€
Osteria del Borgo
Dinner · €€
Ten minutes down the hill from us. Say you are with the wedding and Marco will find you a table.
Dinner · €€
Il Cavallino Rosso
Dinner · €€
Grilled meat over chestnut wood, up a track in the hills. Bring cash and an appetite.
Dinner · €€
Bagno Nettuno
Lunch · €
A beach hut that serves the best fried fish on the coast, on plastic chairs, until the end of October.
Lunch · €
The cypress drive