Pisa, Lucca, and the Day I Stopped Taking the "Silly" Photo Seriously

I told myself I wouldn't do it. The cliché tourist photo, arms out, "holding up" the Leaning Tower of Pisa like it's about to topple onto a piazza full of strangers. I'd seen a thousand versions of that picture online and promised myself I was above it.

I was not above it. I did the pose. Everyone does the pose. And somehow that's exactly what made the day feel right.

Pisa: A Mistake That Became a Miracle

Here's the thing nobody quite tells you about the Leaning Tower: it started leaning while it was still being built, back in 1173, because the ground on one side was too soft. Instead of stopping to fix it, the builders more or less shrugged and kept going. Eight centuries later, that stubborn decision is the reason millions of people show up every year to take the exact same silly photo I took.

But the Tower isn't even the best part of Piazza dei Miracoli. Walk a little further and the Duomo and Baptistery open up in front of you — impossibly white, almost glowing against the grass. Inside the Duomo, there's a small detail I loved: legend says a young Galileo Galilei sat here watching a swinging chandelier and worked out the basic principles of the pendulum. Whether that's fact or a good story that stuck, it's hard not to look up at the lamps differently after hearing it.

Lucca: The Town That Never Tore Down Its Walls

Lucca surprised me in a completely different way. While most Tuscan towns eventually knocked down their old defensive walls to make room for growth, Lucca just... kept theirs. Fully intact. Today you can walk or cycle the entire loop on top of them, like an elevated ring-shaped park wrapped around the whole historic center. I rented a bike for twenty minutes and ended up staying an hour, circling the town from above street level while looking down at rooftops and church domes.

The strangest, most delightful spot in Lucca is Piazza dell'Anfiteatro — an elliptical square that isn't shaped like a Roman amphitheater by coincidence. It literally sits on top of one. The buildings ringing the square were built where spectators once sat, centuries after the original structure crumbled. Sitting in a café there, in a perfect oval of buildings, it's easy to forget you're technically inside a 2,000-year-old skeleton.

I also stumbled onto the house where Giacomo Puccini was born, tucked into a quiet street like it wasn't hiding one of opera's biggest names. Standing there, it wasn't hard to imagine where some of La Bohème's melancholy came from.

Two Towns, Two Completely Different Energies

Pisa is loud, photogenic, over almost as soon as you've taken your obligatory photo and had a coffee. Lucca is slower, quieter, made for wandering without a real destination. Pairing them in one day works precisely because they don't compete with each other — you get the iconic bucket-list moment and the unhurried afternoon, back to back.

Let Someone Else Deal with Pisa's Parking

If there's one thing I'd change about the day, it's the stress of parking near a monument that half of Europe wants to see at the same time. Our private transfer service drops you right where you need to be, in both towns, so the only thing you have to think about is which arm to raise for the photo.

[Book Your Private Transfer →]

Curious about the rest of Tuscany? Read about Cortona, Montepulciano & Pienza · Monteriggioni, Siena & San Gimignano · The Cinque Terre