Is Lucca Worth Visiting? One Day Inside the Walls, Two Outside Them

Is Lucca worth visiting? Yes, and I’d give it three days. I live about half an hour from Lucca and guide walks around it, so when I work out how many days in Lucca you need, I count what’s outside the walls as well as what’s inside. It’s also why I’d push you to sleep a night here, even if you’d planned a Lucca day trip from Florence or hoped to fit Pisa and Lucca into the same day.

The walls and the centre fill one day. The reason to stay a second and a third night is outside them. I’d spend day two walking the aqueduct and day three on a mountain, which takes you further from Via Fillungo than most two-day Lucca itineraries ever go.

Booking your Lucca nights from home? Keep one for a mountain day. Already in Tuscany? Send me your dates on WhatsApp and I'll tell you what we can do together, and when.

How Many Days in Lucca?

Three, if you like to walk, and that’s the number I’d book. With only two, I’d cut the mountain before I cut the aqueduct. The aqueduct takes zero planning and fits into a morning before your train out.

For three nights I’d sleep inside the walls or close to the station. The station faces Porta San Pietro, about five minutes on foot from the gate, and the aqueduct starts within a short walk of it, so either choice keeps the first two days on foot.

Day one, inside the walls

Climb the 230 steps of Torre Guinigi to the holm oaks growing on its roof, then find Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, where the houses still follow the ring of the Roman amphitheatre. Add the Duomo and a slow lunch somewhere off Via Fillungo, and that’s most of the day gone. I’d keep the end of it for the walls.

There’s one festival I’d book around. Every year Lucca Comics & Games takes over the town for five days around 1 November, with pavilions in squares inside and outside the walls, and the 2025 edition sold more than 280,000 tickets in a city of about 89,000 people. Unless comics are why you’re coming, pick other dates.

Day two, the aqueduct on foot

Give the aqueduct your second morning. Its city end, the Tempietto di San Concordio, is about ten minutes on foot from Lucca station. From there the arches run out across the plain toward the foothills of Monte Pisano, the wooded ridge between Lucca and Pisa. In summer I’d start early, before the heat.

You don’t need me for it. My guide to the Lucca aqueduct has the route broken down stretch by stretch, and it’s written so you can walk it alone. When I guide it, we go on past the last arch to the source that feeds it and come back the same way. The price on the card covers your whole group of up to three, and from the fourth walker I add €5 each.

Private guided hike

Nottolini Aqueduct

The aqueduct doubles as a sundial. Once a day the light runs straight down its corridor of arches, at a time that shifts through the year.

• About 3 hours
• €165 per group
• Reachable by train
• Longer route to a view over Lucca, on request

Easy · 9.1 km (5.7 mi) · 50 m (164 ft) ascent

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Day three, a mountain

Day three needs a car. Neither of the two mountain walks I’d pick from Lucca has practical public transport. If you don’t have a car, tell me when you write and I’ll help you find a solution.

Lago Nero takes the whole day. In July or August it’s where I’d send you, because a lake at 1,730 metres stays pleasant while the plain around Lucca is hot. The trailhead is 63 km from Lucca, under an hour and a half by car. The walk takes about five hours there and back with stops, climbing out of beech and fir woods to a lake in a glacial basin, and it suits fit children from 14 who are used to a long day on their feet. Up there I’d plan on May to December, and a heavy winter can take May away.

I only guide the Marmifera del Corchia on Saturdays and Sundays, because the marble trucks use the road on weekdays. So if that’s the mountain you want, the weekend decides which day of your stay becomes day three. It’s also the shorter day, three and a half hours on the marble road from Passo Croce, which sits at 1,150 metres and 61 km from Lucca.

What I can’t know when you book is the weather up there, so I make that call the evening before. You’ll hear from me by 20:00, and only if something has to change.

Private guided hike

Lago Nero

Nero means black. From most angles the water looks it, and on a still day the surface mirrors the peaks around the basin.

• About 5 hours
• €240 per group
• Longer day on request

Medium · 8 km (5 mi) · 450 m (1,476 ft) ascent

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Private guided hike

Marmifera del Corchia

The road climbs past active quarries with Viareggio and Forte dei Marmi below you. On clear days you can pick out Corsica.

• About 3.5 hours
• €210 per group
• Saturdays and Sundays only

Medium-Easy · 7 km (4.3 mi) · 420 m (1,378 ft) ascent

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The other walks I guide near Lucca are on my hiking near Lucca page. With a fourth or fifth day, the day trips from Lucca I’ve written up cover the rest, from the Padule di Fucecchio wetland to the coast.

Lucca’s Walls, on Foot and by Bike

The walls went up in the 16th and 17th centuries and never saw military use. In the 1820s Maria Luisa of Bourbon had the ramparts turned into a public promenade, and they’re still planted with plane trees and holm oaks. Arrive by train and you walk in through Porta San Pietro, one of three original gates among the six in use today.

Lucca’s official tourism site puts the circuit at 4.2 km, about an hour at an easy pace. I’d walk it first, because on foot you can stop at the bastions and look out. After that, rent a bike in town and ride the same loop, which takes about 20 to 25 minutes.

I also photograph couples and families on Lucca's walls in the evening light.

Is Lucca Worth a Day Trip from Florence?

Yes, if a day is all you have. The regional train takes about an hour and a half each way, and the line has had engineering works, so check the timetable for your date before you go. Three hours on trains still leaves you the centre and a lap of the walls, and for a trip built around Florence I’d call that a good day out.

A day trip misses the evening on the walls and everything outside them. I wouldn’t squeeze the aqueduct in as well, because another three hours on foot leaves too little of the day for the town you came to see.

With a week in Florence, I’d move one night to Lucca instead, arrive in the afternoon, have the walls in the evening, walk the aqueduct the next morning and catch a train back after lunch.

Pisa and Lucca in One Day

From Florence it can be done, and I’d still talk you out of it. Florence to Pisa takes about an hour by train, Pisa to Lucca about half an hour and Lucca back to Florence about an hour and a half, so roughly three hours of the day go on trains, and a three-hour walk doesn’t fit into what’s left.

I’d give Pisa a short visit instead. Two hours covers the tower and the square around it, and then the train takes you on to Lucca for the night. The aqueduct will still be there in the morning.

If you’re flying into Pisa, I’d do the same on the day you land. The airport is a short PisaMover ride from Pisa Centrale, so you can see the tower in the afternoon and be inside Lucca’s walls by evening.

Lucca or Pisa?

For somewhere to sleep, I’d pick Lucca. Its station sits just outside the walls, the centre is flat and small enough to cross on foot, and you can walk from the platforms to the aqueduct. Pisa wins on the airport. I’ve written up Pisa as a base for walkers who’d rather sleep near their flight.

And if Siena is the other name on your list for a longer stay, I’ve compared the two for walkers in Lucca or Siena.