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Need advice where to stay: Lucca or Volterra

Posted by (Placitas, NM, USA) on

I'm in the planning stages for a 14 trip to Tuscany for Sept. 2025. We'll be flying into Florence's and be renting a car. My plan is to stay 5 nights in the Lucca, Volterra area (can't decide to stay in Lucca inside the city walls or in an Agriturismo outside of Volterra. We've been to the area before but that's been awhile ago. After 5 nights in the first location, we'll be move to a different location around Montepulciano for 5 nights, then 1 night in Florence when we drop off the car before flying out. If we stay in Lucca we can walk to dinner rather than driving. If we stay in an Agriturismo it would be a great experience too but we'd be driving to go for our dinner meal. There are pros and cons to each location, I would love to get our input

Thank you very much

Posted by
898 posts

Stayed inside the wall in Lucca……loved it….rode our bikes on the wall and loved the charm!

Posted by
7777 posts

Regarding Lucca vs. Volterra, we spent several nights inside the walls of Lucca (staying at La Boheme B&B), and it was a great experience. Haven’t been to Volterra, so I can’t give you a personal comparison, but Lucca was great. We’d had a car earlier in the trip, but turned it in prior to Lucca, and I’m glad we didn’t have a car to keep parked somewhere outside the walls. We did rent bikes there, and rode inside, on top of, and outside the walls - great area to explore.

Regarding an agriturismo, those we’ve stayed at all offered dinner. Maybe you’ve found a place that doesn’t, and at our last one (3 years ago in Umbria), we had originally expected to drive to Spoleto and/or other places for some of our dinners. But we were in such a backroads area that going out in the dark and making it to/from dinner on very narrow, twisty roads, and the challenging driveway our agritourismo had, no matter the time of day and the amount of sunlight, that we had dinner there each night. Driving would’ve prevented the driver enjoying wine with the meal, so staying put at night avoided that issue. We were the only guests most nights, so there wasn’t a menu; it was whatever Madama Maria was fixing, and she was an excellent cook. Her husband was getting the same thing as we were nightly, and everything came from their farm (well, maybe not the flour in the pasta). Only glitch was when one night’s surprise dinner was rabbit. My husband raised bunnies as pets when he was young, and won’t eat one, so he had a LOT of potatoes for dinner that night.

Posted by
178 posts

Thank you all for your very helpful advice.
I've decided to stay in Lucca first then we'll move to another location. I can't decide to stay if we should stay near Montalciano, Pienza or Bevagna, they all look like great locations. I'm leaning towards staying in Bevagna., thoughts an advice would gibe greatly appreciated.

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