Lucca Transportation Tips by alucas Top 5 Page for this destination

Trains from Lucca

Lucca has connections to Viareggio, Pisa, & Florence, so there is a good train service. www.trenitalia.com has a good website (with english pages) giving train times, and allowing on-line advance ticket purchasing.

Examples of travel times and fares (2004): -
Lucca to Florence 1 hour 25 to 1 hour 45 Current fare 4.60 euros single
Lucca to Pisa 25 - 35 mins current fare 2.10 euros single
Lucca to Viareggio 17 – 20 minutes current fare 2.10 euros single

Mode: TO

Type: Train

Trains to Lucca from Pisa Airport

There is a rail link from the airport to Pisa Centrale with a frequent service - times are here.

http://www.pisa-airport.com/sat/cda/aree/index.php?idArea=4

Trains from Pisa Centrale to Lucca take around 25 minutes. You can find the timetable by visiting

http://www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html and filling in the form.

Mode: TO

Type: Train

Buses in Lucca 2

Tip originally written in November 2004.

The suburban buses are blue single-deckers. There are nine routes, but different directions on each route are numbered differently, so there are 18 bus numbers, running from 51 to 68. The routes cover a wide area, from Balbano and Carrognano Buchignani in the west to Capannori and Lammari in the east. We were staying just outside the city walls, so didn’t use the suburban buses at all, so I can’t comment on frequency of fares. Check the website for more information on the regional and suburban buses (in Italian, but the map, routes and timetables are all there).

Update March 2008.

I have had several enquiries for more information about the buses recently, so have re-visited the websites to check on the information I gave before. I can't find a clear map of the services, although there is a small, blurry one buried on the CLAP website. The timetables can be found though. Look up in the index http://tinyurl.com/2wmsjg for where you want to go, and the timetable number, and then look in the whole timetable at http://tinyurl.com/ynk227 to find the times. The services vary during school holidays, so you need to check the dates on page 4 of the index.

Mode: AROUND

Type: Bus

Website: http://www.clapspa.it/enter.htm

Parking in Lucca

As the centre of Lucca is full of narrow streets, there is very limited car parking inside the city, and much of it is residents only. There are several car parks around the outside of the city walls, usually a couple of streets further out, and these are served by the navettes. Try the north east of the city, where we saw plenty of spaces available during the day.

Mode: AROUND

Type: Car/Motor Home

Bus Tickets

Like most Italian cities, you buy tickets at the Tabacci before getting on the navettes and stamp them in the machines on the buses. The fare in July 2004 was a flat fare of 0.60 euros, and the tickets were valid for a single journey anywhere within the urban area. We found it worthwhile to buy books of twelve tickets at 6 euros a book. Season tickets are available, and probably day and weekly passes, but we didn’t pursue that any further.

Mode: AROUND

Type: Bus

Buses in Lucca 3

The city buses, or navettes, are orange minibuses, which have about a dozen seats, but can carry many more standing. The routes run at intervals between 10 and 20 minutes, and we found that they were usually on time to the minute. They do stop running about 8 in the evening, so whilst you can get a bus into the centre in the evening, you will have to walk back or get a taxi. We were near enough to walk off our evening meals!

There are seven main routes, with different numbers in each direction, plus one circular route. Some of the routes pass near to the main tourist sites, San Martino, Piazza Napoleone, Ampteatro, San Frediano. A map of the routes can be found at http://www.luccavirtuale.it/categorie/negozi/servizi-pubblici/autolinee/clap/mappa.htm

Mode: AROUND

Type: Bus

Website: http://www.luccavirtuale.it/categorie/negozi/servizi-pubblici/autolinee/clap/mappa.htm

Buses in Lucca

This information is based on a route map obtained from the bus station in July 2004. Like all public transport in Italy, this could well be already out of date. Indeed, we found that local diversions were operating on some of the Navettes whilst we were there, mainly due to building works in the narrow city centre streets.

There are three types of buses in Lucca, the regional buses serving the more distant places such as Barga and Viarregio, the suburban buses, and the town buses, or navettes, serving the city centre. All are run by the company CLAP (yes, really).

The main bus station is at Piazzale G. Verdi, just inside the city walls at the west of the centre. All the buses stop here, some as the terminus, some just passing through.

Mode: AROUND

Type: Bus