Early impressions upon my afternoon arrival by train from Firenze today is that Lucca is suffering.
Right at the stazione I was already asking myself, 'What has happened to Lucca?'
I have been here often enough in winter to this time sense a slackening and outright deterioration of economic activity.
Once elegant Via Fillungo doesn't seem so at the moment: empty stores, an incursion of generic brands drawing lessened attention,
and, sadly, even iconic, belle époque DiSimo has closed, whether for a while or forever, locals can't say.
Plenty of shop space throughout the centro is vacant and, as elsewhere, of what is new, empty space is becoming filled with bodegas
and take away places offering pizza and paninis at the upper end, and dull, uninspired stores selling packaged snacks, bottled drinks, candy at the lower. There is no oomph to these shops, just uninterestingly stocked shelves, the space often manned by a completely disinterested person fiddling with a cell phone.
Lucca is still a storybook place, its narrow, winding streets fronted by relatively ancient facades, decorated with charming bibelots, whatever may going on behind the big wooden doors. . . it still has that, amazingly so.
The evening passeggiata is, as always, alive, and very well;
I was able to take in most of the 2+km walk atop the walls before dark,
and there were plenty of walkers, bicyclists, couples, joggers, moms with children enjoying the beautiful sunset tonight.