Lucca

The most completely preserved Renaissance-era town walls in Italy encircle Lucca, a city in the northern Tuscan plain. The 4.2-kilometre rampart walk at tree-canopy level is wide enough for cyclists and pedestrians and provides an unusual elevated circuit of the city. Within the walls, a medieval street plan with Roman traces surrounds the oval Piazza dell'Anfiteatro—built over a first-century amphitheatre—and the Romanesque cathedral of San Martino.