Torre Guinigi

Medieval Lucca had well over a hundred towers and a handful survive, and this one is distinctive because there is a garden on top of it. Holm oaks grow in a bed of earth on the roof, forty-odd metres up, planted by the Guinigi as a statement about their standing at a time when the family effectively ran the city. The trees now are replacements, but the arrangement is original and appears in early depictions of the town. The climb is a stone stair that turns to steel near the top, and the view takes in the walls, the oval square built inside a Roman amphitheatre, and the hills behind.

What you actually see

• The roof garden - holm oaks growing in earth on top of the tower.
• The view over the walls - the full circuit of ramparts around the town.
• Piazza dell'Anfiteatro - the oval square built into a Roman amphitheatre, seen from above.
• The stair - stone at the bottom, steel where it narrows near the top.

When to go

April to October, when the trees are in leaf; in winter they are bare and the point of the place is diminished. Late afternoon gives the best light across the roofs. The top platform is small, so avoid the middle of the day in summer, when groups back up on the stair and nobody can pass.

Honest expectations

There is no lift and the last flights are steep and narrow, with traffic going both ways on a single stair. The platform holds few people and feels cramped when it is full. The garden is smaller than the photographs suggest. The Torre delle Ore nearby is taller and usually empty, if the trees are not the draw.

Nearby

The city walls can be walked or cycled the whole way round; Pisa is twenty minutes by train.