For a relatively small town Bagni di Lucca has its fair share of ‘piazze’ – squares – particularly important in Italian social life. There’s the Terme alla Villa Square, the ‘Piazzetta’ by the Auser second.hand clothes shop, the Post office square, the market square and the Ponte a Serraglio square, not ignoring the squares in front of the churches.

Now Bagni has two ‘new’ squares.

One is the ‘Piazza Varraud’ before the ‘Forestieri’ restaurant, now completely restructured as a pedestrian area and used for special events like last weekend’s antiques market, and the Piazza Giacomo Puccini, the old forecourt of the Teatro Accademico, named in honour of the supreme opera composer who patronised Bagni di Lucca and wrote his ‘Girl of the Golden West’ here. As part of the inauguration a very able foursome played Puccini’s elegaic ‘Crisantemi’ for string quartet preceded by Haydn’s ‘Lark quartet: a fine debut for our latest ‘piazza’.

Here are some pics showing the inauguration of the two ‘new’ squares: