This is an excerpt for Episode 1: Andrea Bocelli’s Tuscany from the Dream of Italy Season 3 Travel Guide. Get your own PDF copy here.
Composer Giacomo Puccini was born in 1858 in the city of Lucca, whose well-preserved Renaissance-era defensive walls are one of its main sights. Puccini came from a musical family with deep roots in Lucca—his grandfather, also named Giacomo, was a maestro at the city’s Cattedrale di San Martino—and the family’s legacy is celebrated in the city today. Tour guide Gabriele Calabrese met Kathy in front of the city’s Chiesa di San Michele in Foro, an 11th-century basilica with a towering, ornate façade from the 13th century near the Puccini Museum.