Better late, extremely finally late, than ever!
I would say that the feelings of the Euromeetup were too strong, but that’s a lie, it was just terrible busy time 
. However there are not enough words to summarize what Euromeetup has been, by participant side but this time by organizer too together with my fellow friend @ErmesT!
The calendar was very busy, many Local Guides started to popup in Lucca during the week and it was so nice to see faces randomly spotting in the small and beautiful city of Lucca.
The official program started at 18:30 at Gorilla - Craft Food & Beer, welcome drinks and welcome dinner to get all Local Guides together. It was a street party while every face would popup at the appointment, joy, joy and joy seeing old friends but also new one. A special presence of all of our Google Moderators for which we wouldn’t thank enough 
.
The dinner proceeded very well with a pre-fixed menu covering all dietary needs, just some beers for the party to take off, a very small welcome speech and directly started off with a night walk city tour of the city guided by Antonella, from the Lucca Tourism Office, who guided us in all main and secret spot of the city.
First full day of the meetup started next day at 9:00 at Chrono Bikes to join a bike tour within the city and part of the historical walls discovering the history and the life of the famous Giacomo Puccini musician, our guide was the responsible of the Fondazione Puccini. The tour ended with a light refreshment in one of the last spot related to the life and history of Puccini, before we handed over the bikes to the rental shop.
Next stop discovering the towers of Lucca: Torre Guinigi and Torre delle Ore. Two famous towers which are very characteristic in the city landscape. After the bike tour we could not miss an additional exercise by climbing the two towers by their tiny stairs 
, at least the view from the top is amazing and Antonella, our guide again, explained us every detail of it.
Time for our lunch prepared by La Pecora Nera, a cafe ran by an Onlus Association which takes care about children with physical and mental disabilities helping them to run a regular life by working, studying and meeting people. The responsible of the association explained us their history and how they run the association and the business with all biological and self sustainable agricultural production which were used to prepare our lunch.
After lunch we split the group in two subgroup to join the guided visits of two museums of the city: Museo Nazionale di Villa Guinigi and Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi. Since the museums are small we couldn’t fit the group all together so we could overlap the visits and exchange them afterwards.
The dinner was planned at De Cervesia Beer & Food with again a predefined menu, the whole restaurant reserved for us, and couple of beers again for the very heavy exercised day we had 
.
Here a surprise for everyone: the special arrival of @Julie_A directly from NYC who joined our dinner and the rest of the meetup program 
.
The second day was fully dedicated to the visit of the walls starting with a guided walking tour on part of them, its bastions and fascinating underground, and finishing with the visit of the beautiful Orto Botanico of Lucca, one of the oldest one in Italy together with the one of Padova.
For lunch we could not miss something very typical from Italy: pizza 
! Pizzeria SUD, a beautiful real Neapolitan pizzeria exceptionally hosted us.
After lunch space for the virtual meetup and get other Local Guides from all around the world join us in a panel discussion with the Responsible of the Tourism Office of the city of Lucca and our special guest Julie.
After the panel another experience on the walls by joining the festival Historia running all around the walls where the association Contrade San Paolino was waiting for us to show and describe us the old art of the crossbow and all the old professions.
It was a relaxing moment knowing a bit more of ancient history.
Final dinner at Trattoria da Giulio in pelleria, one of the most historical restaurant of Lucca, to eat some very typical dishes, space for a quick TikTok Local Guides dance .. (never to be missed!) and just before the thunderstorm.
It was very difficult start saying good bye everyone after those 3 fantastic days who resembled to be a full month 
.
A special thank you of course to all Local Guides joining us in Lucca, to the Google moderators, Julie who surprising flew from NYC, the City of Lucca, all the associations and restaurants who welcomed us and made sure we would get the best experience of the city.
To the next year, road to Euromeeup 2026!
Video recap by @ErmesT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOrGAzRCxXE
Panel video recap by @AdrianLunsong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntKVFhp8eHM
