A wet and rainy Friday!

Thursday, May 14, 2015 – P.M.

Ciao!

 

After a really lovely nap, we decided, around 7 p.m. that it was time to “walk the walls” as it were. 

Stunning Palazzo; love to live there!

Part of the exterior of the wall

Lucca has been a walled city for centuries, and the last iteration – in the middle ages, expanded the walls so that they were not only high, but wide!  So here is a completely surrounded small city with a wonderful wide avenue on top of the walls planted with huge trees on either side.  It is stunning!  The walk itself, to completely circle the city, is 4 km, roughly 2.4 miles.  Along the way there are picnic tables and benches as well as playgrounds and even the occasional restaurant for something to eat or drink!  There were people walking, jogging, running, roller-blading and bike riding. 

Stunning tree!

Looking over the wall

We saw parents with small children just learning how to ride a bike, as well as some very serious running and biking types.  (I recall that a few years ago, a very prominent American cyclist, Tyler Farrer, did his training out of Lucca.)  With the cooler weather – I was actually wearing a SWEATER! – it was a lovely evening walk. 

I do love lions...

One of the many town towers!

It doesn’t get dark until really late here at the moment, which is nice. 

My tagliatelle with truffles!

R's meat filled and sauced pasta

R's vin santo and biscotti

My Zuppa Luchese

After circling the walls, R decided that he was hungry, and it was “time” to eat.  (Truth be told, I wasn’t really hungry, as we’d had such a big lunch – however, I wasn’t really given too much of a choice!) We wandered back into the anfitheatro and were looking at the restaurants, but I suggested that as we’d had such a nice lunch, we return to Osteria Baralla … which we did.  This time, R ordered a plate of local pasta filled with meat (a type of ravioli) with a meat sauce.  It was very good.  I, on the other hand, ordered tagliatelle with truffles … oh my, I could eat them any time, truly!  (R thinks I’m crazy!)  And it was wonderful!  Truffles have such a great smell!  For dessert, R had a Lucca cookie, like biscotti with pistachios, and a glass of Vin Santo (a sweet wine) in which to dunk them.  I had something called “zuppa Luchese” which was odd, as it turned out – like an almond cake mixed with custard with frutti di bosco, raisins and strawberries.  Good, but way too much for me to finish! 

And with that, so ends a lovely day (our 33^rd anniversary!) as we made our way to Lucca!  Tomorrow we’re heading out to take the bus from here to the Pisa Airport to pick up our rental car.  Very much looking forward to that!  Also looking forward to hopefully getting some RAIN, which I think is very much needed around here!  So, not sure what we’ll do if it rains…Etruscan Museum in Volterra? Lunch in Monteriggioni at Il Pozzo?  We’ll have to wait and see!

More later and lots of love,

m

xxx

Good morning!

We ended up closing the balcony doors last night, as it tended to get a bit rowdy out on the square.  But the doors are double glazed, and when closed it is lovely and quiet inside.  We both slept well; up around 6:30 a.m.  Breakfast was very nice, served in the large kitchen.  Livia has a professional-grade meat slicer that Robert would like to smuggle out of here, but I keep telling him it will need a seat on the airplane.  And, the most interesting thing – IT’S RAINING!!  Wow!!  And I mean raining, not just a few drops or two.  We are now breakfasted and heading toward Piazzale Guisipe Verdi shortly to catch the bus to Pisa airport to pick up the car.  More later! m xxx

Good evening!

We have had an interesting and rather damp kind of day.  After breakfast we headed over to Piazalle Verdi to catch the bus – 3€ each to the Pisa airport; certainly not a bad deal.  On to the bus and out on the highway, but this bus did not go the route that I thought the same bus had taken several years ago when I was here last.  Rather, we went through San Giovanni Terme, a thermal spa area, passed the “field of Miracles” where we were able to see the Leaning Tower – and it does lean!  And finally, to the airport; all told, it took about an hour.  Then on to the rental car shuttle bus, which was right next door – for the 400 or so yards to the rental car headquarters.  Our rental was with Sixt, and that’s where our day began to get complicated.

After waiting more than 15 minutes for service (only two clients ahead of us), the first thing that happened was that the guy at the desk couldn’t find my name.  Right…did I book under another name?  Not hardly…and voila, after a few minutes of thrashing about, he found me!  Then came the real problem.  I had my driver’s license, my passport – but what I did NOT have is a credit card with RAISED NUMBERS!  This is the second time this trip that has occurred!  The guy said he HAD to have raised numbers – even though we handed him several cards with the European chip technology that everyone is so hot on now.  Finally, R discovered his debit card had raised letters … well, the guy said that wasn’t going to work either.  So…how would we like to rent a SMART instead?  Excuse me?  I don’t think so!  We have two full-size people and two full-size cases and carry-ons…never happen.  Eventually, at our insistence that (1) we weren’t going away, and (2) we were going to get a car, he agreed to use the debit card, but I’m not actually sure for what.  At any rate, we FINALLY got our car – and it’s a really cute and brand-new Fiat Punto; looks like a station wagon!  And it had all of 9 km (about 4 miles) when we finally started it up.  So, lesson for anyone coming to Italy and wanting to rent a car in the near future:  Make SURE you have a credit card that has raised numbers!!

By this time it was almost lunch time, so we decided to head back to Lucca and spend the afternoon exploring, heading out toward Volterra tomorrow morning after breakfast.  Then came the parking dilemma.  Wow!  Who knew parking could be so complicated?  There are all sorts of free parking lots outside the city walls, but the one our B&B owner wanted us to go to was impossible for us to find.  (It would help to have a name and to be on the map he gave us, I suppose…) We ended up parking and then schlepping all the way back in, only to find that we needed to go out and move the car…grrr…but do that after lunch.

R's pasta with yellow tomato sauce & ricotta

My hand-made ravioli with pumpkin

It had been raining steadily most of the morning, and then switched to that on-again/off-again pattern (in fact, it has now started thundering, which is very dramatic!) so we didn’t want to go too far.  So, as the food is so good at Baralla, back we went; we are definitely becoming regulars!  This time, R had home-made spaghetti with a yellow tomato sauce and fresh ricotta, and I had their home-made ravioli with pumpkin in both the pasta dough as well as used as the filling, with a cream sauce.  Both were wonderful!  And, for the first time in days, we washed everything down with their excellent house red wine, as way too chilly today for white!

Then, back to the long schlep to the parking lot again, to move the car.  We have come to the conclusion that we’re going to have to stay near Pisa on Sunday night rather than in our B&B here in Lucca.  We are catching a VERY early (6 something a.m.) Ryan Air flight to Sardinia, and between getting the luggage actually TO the car and then driving the 20 or so miles to the airport, we would have to be on the road somewhere about 4 a.m.  So, first we moved the car into a “real” parking lot (famous last words; we hope!) and then came back to find a place to stay.  Booked us in to the Blue Shades ApartHotel, which is something like 500 yards to the airport…should be easy enough for us to find!

One of many town towers

Part of old Roman amphitheatre

Amazing front of San Michele in Foro

Della Robbia below

More detail of San Michele in Foro

By this time, R had received the information that he needed from the Chinese observers so that he could work on scheduling the Palomar 200” telescope, so I left him in the room to work, and I took the camera out to play with me! 

San Frediano - stunning mosaic

Fresco on pillar

More frescos on pillars

Between bouts of rain, I visited several wonderful Lucca churches, as well as looked in lots of store windows here in town. 

Stunning main altar

Lovely paintings in a side chapel

This is indeed a fun place to visit/stay, and we recommend it highly!  Finally back to the room about 6 p.m. so that I could post blog and photos and we can start thinking about dinner!

Much love,

m

xxx