The Puccini trail

Opera buffs will be drawn to the birthplace of Lucca’s celebrated composer, Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). This giant of twentieth-century opera was baptised in the local church, Santi Giovanni e Reparata. The composer is inextricably linked with his Lucca homeland, and even played the organ in Lucca Cathedral. Puccini’s birthplace, the revamped Casa Museo Puccini, is a good starting point for any Puccini tour, and was where he spent a happy childhood and early adulthood. The house stayed within the Puccini family until passing to the Puccini Foundation in 1974. the dining room, complete with arrara marble fireplace, gives a sense of the lives of Lucca’s middle class. The Music Room is the centre of Puccini’s world, with the Steinway piano on which he composed Turandot. For a full Puccini tour, head west to Torre del Lago, on the shores of Lake Massaciuccoli, covered in an itinerary from Viareggio, and in Viareggio itself, as well as in Montecatini Terme, another Puccini haunt.

Address: Museo Puccini, Corte san Lorenzo 9, Lucca
Web: www.puccinimuseum.org