Lucca walls

The charm of Lucca also come from its Renaissance Walls that surround the old city.
But Lucca has always been a walled city since it was founded by the Romans in the year 180 B.C.
The first walls surrounded the village called “Luca” (from the original name Loik), they formed a square and were long around 2 km.
During the Middle Ages after the year 1000, Lucca was pretty rich, wealthy and a strategic stop along the French Route (Via Francigena) and so new walls were needed to protect the suburbs that had grown outside the Roman walls.
These walls were finished around the year 1270 and nowadays we can still admire a part of them in the North side of the city and two big gates.
As the walls were built to protect the city from enemies, the East side was made safer by digging out a fosse and we can still walk along Via del Fosso following it. The fosse was outside of the original walls to provide extra protection.
Finally, the Reinaissance Walls were started on October 1513 to include buildings and houses developed outside the Middle Ages walls. 4 km long, provided with bastions and controlled by soldiers, the Walls are a symbol of Lucca.