Travel theme: Statues. They are meant to look like a couple of glass plates from the Grand Tour.  Look closely though and the graffiti is distinctly un-nineteenth century.  This statue sits next to Lucca’s Renaissance-era city wall which provides tourists with the perfect circular walk – something I liked to do as kid at Chester and later at Berwick, York and elsewhere. It is difficult to get lost. In terms of scale there is no comparison between Lucca and the English equivalents. Lucca’s walls are on the grand scale – think New York’s High Line, only bigger.

Graffiti gets everywhere but this statue and this area of Lucca seem a holy place for alfresco scribes.  Many appear to be declarations of love and some are not – my Italian is not up to playing the censor but some of the more obvious ‘symbols’ have been erased

(click on the images to enlarge)