Lucca | The City You Cannot Photograph

Lucca, in February, and what survives when nobody comes to look

We came in through Porta Santa Maria on a Tuesday afternoon in February, with the sun low and the wind off the Apuane sharp enough to flatten Sophia’s coat against her, and there was nobody there. The cobbles were wet from rain that had stopped an hour earlier. A man in a green trench was walking a dog. Two old women were having a conversation on a benc…