This morning began with a short walking tour of south Lucca. Lucca still has its Roman/medieval wall in tact so we began there. Not so long ago, vehicles could drive on the wall, but now it has been converted to pedestrian use only and it makes for a lovely walk.

Lucca is called “the city with 100 churches” although some of them have been closed down due to a declining population and a drift away from organized religion. You will find a lot of photos of churches and church interiors in my posts. I hope you like gorgeous art!

St. Martin’s Cathdral was founded as a place of worship in the 6th century, but it was not until 1070 that the Bishop who later became Alexander II consecrated it. Inside it is quite light with a lovely ceiling and small chapels funded by various families along each wall. The banner photo at the top of this post is a close up. of the rococo exterior.

Following a short talk on the history of Lucca, Gillian and I took ourselves off to our reserved dinner at Peperosa, a restaurant identified on the Michelin website as being promising. And promising it was! The meal started with a complimentary glass of champagne and a bite of croaker fish.

We enjoyed a Tuscan Brunello di Montalcino (2019) which was so smooth and delicious!

We ordered the “egg cooked at low temperature in farofa crust, taleggio fondue, spicy friarielli and kataifi“, the “seasonal vegetable selection, steamed potatoes cream, peppers, confit tomatoes, seared baby zucchini, sous vide baby eggplant and cocoa mushroom crumble” and a lamb ragu not pictured here. The egg was absolutely out of this world! The veggies, not quite so, but still delicious.

As we were quite full, we declined to order a dessert. What? No dessert? They couldn’t have that so brought us two little chocolate bites that were heavenly.

Our reservation was for 7. By 9 we were finished, having been entertained by a musician who, sadly, left before I could photograph him. Instead, I stood in the middle of the Amphitheatre Square where our restaurant is located and took a video of the Square. 9 pm seems to be a fashionable time to dine!

I’ll write a separate post about Lucca day 2 as we had a wonderful day and I have lots of photos to share. In the meantime, stai attento!