Photo: Gianni Careddu (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walk through the walled centre of Lucca, starting at Porta San Pietro, the gate of 1565 to 1566 that was for a time the only one foreigners could enter by. It crosses Piazza Napoleone, cut open in 1806 before the Palazzo Ducale, passes the Teatro del Giglio, and reaches Santi Giovanni e Reparata, Lucca's first cathedral, with excavations down to a Roman house, and the Cathedral of San Martino with the Volto Santo and the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto. East and north it visits Santa Maria Forisportam, the Torre Guinigi with holm oaks on its top, San Pietro Somaldi, where Puccini played the organ, and the oval Piazza dell'Anfiteatro that keeps the outline of the Roman amphitheatre. Then down Via Fillungo, the old Roman cardo, to San Frediano and its mosaic façade, Palazzo Pfanner's garden, the Torre delle Ore, San Michele in Foro on the Roman forum and Puccini's birthplace, ending on the walls of 1504 to 1650, never tested in war and now a promenade. Cruise ships dock at Livorno.
21 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 317 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 56 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Porta San Pietro, Piazza Napoleone and the Palazzo Ducale, Teatro del Giglio, Santi Giovanni e Reparata, Cathedral of San Martino.
Santa Maria Forisportam, Torre Guinigi, San Pietro Somaldi, Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, Porta dei Borghi, Via Fillungo, Basilica of San Frediano, Palazzo Pfanner.
San Salvatore, Torre delle Ore, San Cristoforo, San Michele in Foro, Puccini's birthplace, San Paolino, Palazzo Mansi, The walls at the Baluardo San Paolino.
The cathedral with an asymmetrical façade of 1204, the Volto Santo in Civitali's shrine and the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto.
The Guinigi family's fourteenth-century tower, its summit reached by 230 steps, with holm oaks growing in a garden on top.
An oval square cleared from 1830 inside the ring of houses built over the Roman amphitheatre, with bricked-up arches outside.
The church rebuilt from 1112 over Bishop Frediano's sixth-century foundation, with a large mosaic of the ascending Christ on its façade.
The church on the old Roman forum with a tall façade of loggias, topped by a four-metre statue of Saint Michael.
One of eleven brick bastions on walls built from 1504 to 1650, never used in battle and turned into a tree-lined promenade.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 21 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 21 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Lucca — the City Inside Its Walls, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
21 narration points, including Porta San Pietro, Santi Giovanni e Reparata, Cathedral of San Martino, Torre Guinigi and Piazza dell'Anfiteatro. That is about 33 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 21 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.