Staying in Lucca

We stayed for six weeks in Sevilla, Spain in 2015 and like the idea of staying in a town for longer than a few days. We also like walking trips. So we are combining the two ideas by adding ten days in Lucca at the end of the walk. Not six weeks but long enough to get to know the place. We stayed in Lucca a few days on a trip to Italy in 2012.

Getting There

Travel to Europe can be very hard in economy class. The seats are close together (29-31 inch per seat) with scant legroom.  The flight over the Atlantic is overnight so you have to try to sleep on the plane. We go from Albuquerque (GMT-7) to Italy (GMT+1) so we have eight hour jet lag and we don’t sleep much on the flight.

Last time we paid about 40% extra for premium economy. The seats were 36 inches apart and a little wider. The food was better.

This time we are trying a new idea. We fly from Albuquerque (GMT-7) to New York (GMT-5) and stay overnight in a hotel near JFK. The next day we are taking a daytime flight over the Atlantic to London (GMT+0) and stay in a hotel around London. The next day we fly from London to Milan (GMT+1) and then a train to Pavia (30 minutes) and will sleep in Pavia. We start walking the next day.

Here is a map of the trip.

So we don’t have to sleep on the plane, we have a daytime flight where we can watch a bunch of movies. We sleep in hotels with real beds. The trip will take 45 hours (Albuquerque to Pavia) instead of about 20 hours if we went all in one day. We thought traveling over a few days might help with the jet lag also.

On the way back we will take the train from Lucca to Milan and then fly to London. The next day we fly from London to New York and then to Albuquerque.

Start Here

Getting there: fly from Albuquerque to New York to London to Milan, train to Pavia

The walk: 232 miles in 31 days, 7.3 miles/day.
Lombardy: Pavia, Belgioioso,Miradolo Terme, Orio Litta — 31 miles, 4 days
Emilia-Romagna: Calendasco, Piacenza, Fidenza, Costa Mezzana, Medesano, Sivizzano, Terenzo, Cassio, Berceto — 53 miles, 8 days
Tuscany: Pontremoli, Villafranca in Lunignana, Aulla, Ponzano Superiore, Sarzana, Luni, Avenza, Massa, Pietrasanta, Camaiore,  Montemagno, Lucca, 79 miles, 10 days
Tuscany:Capannori, Altopascio, San Miniato, Gambassi Terme,San Gimignano,Colle di Val d’Elsa,Monteriggioni, Siena — 75 miles, 10 days

After the walk: we will spend 10 days in an AirBnB in Lucca.

Overview and Maps: check out the “Maps” entry on the top menu bar of the blog. The “Global View” shows the flights and everything. The “EAVF and Lightfoot GPX Paths” shows the walk using the GPX tracks from two guidebooks. The second section has the GPX tracks for each leg of the walk.