Staying in Lucca with car

All streets inside the historical center (inside the walls) will be narrow and one way. They didn’t make large boulevards in the Middle Ages. Also the hotel would need to put your car license plate on the City website White List to avoid a fine, because you cannot enter inside the ancient city walls without a permit or without the hotel giving you that temporary permit (registration in the White List).

I suggest you find a hotel outside the city walls, maybe as close as possible, walking distance, to the city walls so you can reach the historical center on foot. Use Google Maps and search “hotels”, then see what comes up.

There are a couple of hotels that are right inside the walls that offer easy access parking

Booking.com will help you locate them ( I can’t remember the hotel names)

Just do a search for your dates and set filters to show “PARKING ”

ETA
https://www.sanlucapalace.it/
https://www.hotelilaria.com/

Hotel a Palazzo Busdraghi offers parking - the parking may be outside the walls - contact the hotel:

https://apalazzobusdraghi.it/en/

We stayed there in November - it's wonderful. We didn't have a car - cab was able to drop us at the door. I would not want to drive within the walls.

Try to stay inside the walls.

Having spent a month in Lucca last year and a week there just this month, but never with a car, I can confirm your impression that driving inside the centro storico is complicated! Narrow streets, lots of pedestrians and bicyclists. I lost count of the number of times we encountered bewildered drivers whose front seat passenger was holding a tourist map of the city and trying to navigate. And of course the whole centro storico is a ZTL. So by all means visit Lucca but it might be best to find a place to park outside the centro storico.

ETA: Hotel San Luca in Via San Paolino is on my list for my next visit. The staff were very nice and happily showed me a room when I stopped by last week. They are just inside the walls at Piazzale Giuseppe Verdi. Well located but I would request a higher floor room to avoid some of the noise of Via San Paolino, a popular street with independent small shops and eateries. Rick’s guidebook suggests checking this site for parking in and around Lucca: http://www.parcheggilucca.it/

I went to a wedding where a number of us stayed in within the walls in Lucca. You can drive within the walls without a pass however, your movements will be very limited, as the entire area is pretty much a ZTL zone. I ended up being the designated-driver one night as the renter was too drunk to drive, we dropped-off everyone through-out Lucca at some early crazy hour going through all the narrow streets. At the end, they got ding'd by both the authorities and the rental car company with a bunch of fines.

There's a handful of parking areas for business/residents inside but, you're best finding accommodations outside the walls as Lucca is really best seen and experienced on-foot anyways.