Lucca

Lucca is the Tuscany people choose once they've seen the rest.

It sits on a flat plain near the coast, a perfect little Renaissance city still wrapped in its full ring of walls. Those walls are the heart of daily life here, wide and tree-lined on top, circled all day by people walking, running, and cycling above the rooftops. Inside, the streets are flat and made for bikes, opening onto the oval Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, built on the ghost of a Roman arena. This is Puccini's hometown, and it lives like it, full of music, with a summer festival that draws big international names and an autumn comics fair that is one of the largest on earth. There is a settled community of foreigners and Americans here, so the landing is soft, and the sea and the mountains are both about half an hour away.