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.
Just as Lajatico and Forte dei Marmi have inspired Bocelli, the nature in Torre del Lago inspired Puccini. The composer spent his last 30 years in this idyllic lakeside town and wrote many of his most famous operas here; he died in Torre del Lago in 1924 and is buried here. The town is perhaps most famous for its annual summertime opera festival, when its full-time population of 11,000 hosts 40,000 visitors who come to see Puccini’s works performed on stage.