‘Towering Lucca, disguised as a wood’ – old poem. Some find it claustrophobic however. To a 10thC nucleus were added austere towers and squares, then came late-medieval ochreous brick houses with arcades, open galleries and courtyards, Renaissance palaces and churches with crenellated bell-towers. White marble from Carrara, lavishly used as decoration, made Lucca an architectural showpiece unique in Italy. The 16th-17thC city walls and bastions are still in excellent shape; the broad green moat they overlooked now contains sports grounds.

The lucchesi say that Gomer, grandson of Noah, founded Lucca when the Deluge subsided. Sempronius lay in wait for Hannibal here in 218 BC. The first Roman triumvirate – Caesar, Crassus and Pompey – chose the city for their inaugural conference in 60 BC. Lucca was afterwards chief city of Tuscany for a time and, it is said, Europe’s first democracy. The citizens grew rich and proud on goldsmithing, silk-weaving and fighting neighbouring republics and they retained their independence until Napoleonic times.

The new town radiates along leafy boulevards across the Serchio plain. It is commercial and industrial – a place to leave the car if you have time to loiter inside the old walls and view San Martino’s cathedral with its unsymmetrical façade, sacred treasures, fine paintings by Tintoretto, Ghirlandaio and Filippo Lippi and the marble groups of Jacopo della Quercia. On one of that sculptor’s tombs some unknown person has laid flowers every day for the past 30 years.

Other rewarding sights include a well-stocked art gallery in the Palazzo della Provincia; the beautifully-decorated church of San Michele in Foro on Piazza Michele; the quaintly medieval houses of Gulnigi and Monna Vanna; and the Travaglio tower, now restored to its 14thC magnificence.

For railway enthusiasts: Lucca is at one end of the picturesque Garfagnana Line, the other end being Aulla. Another charming journey in central Italy is the Taro Valley line connecting Parma, Fidenza, Sarzana and La Spezia.