Lucca - Torre Guinigi

After lunch, we decided to climb up the Torre Guinigi. The tower was built by the Guinigi family (one of the most prominent merchant and leading families in Lucca) in the late 1300s. It is most known for the garden of trees at its top.

The tower from afar! Also note the general atmosphere of the thin streets of Lucca...definitely a pedestrian's paradise. 

According to our guide, towers could not be built higher than the main church tower in Lucca. Including the height of the garden, the Torre Guinigi gently flies higher than the rest. It is thought that the Guinigi family built the tower as high as they could without breaking the height restrictions and then added the garden as a loophole. Whether due to aesthetic beauty or a power trip, the trees on top of the Torre Guinigi give it a special quality that I fell in love with at first sight.

Up the 227 steps we went! Not nearly as hard as climbing the Duomo!

Me climbing the final leg! Ignore my bandaged ankle/foot...I may or may not have stepped wrong on a cobblestone one too many times. 

View from the towertop garden! I'm starting to think that I need to climb every tower I come across.