Exercise and Paper Sculptures

The other night we found a side street that was busy with a vibrant young crowd. We immediately sat at one of the bar tables and ordered beer and wine. It was so entertaining. Then we wandered back to our favorite hang-out, the amphitheater. Because it’s considered too touristy, we can sit and relax without the crowds. Everyone crowds into the narrow streets and church plazas.

Lucca is completely surrounded by a fortified wall, which now serves as a walking and cycling path. We decided to go for a walk this morning. It’s supposedly only 2.6 miles around, but seemed much longer. We walked for about an hour and half. Thank goodness we’d stopped for a cappuccino and panini first. Apparently, two noblewomen in the distant past decided the walls should be made into a parkland. They planted trees and made a walking (and cycling) trail for the people of Lucca. It’s interesting that Lucca never had to make use of its military wall. At around that time the Americas were discovered and all the power-hungry folks turned their attention to the new world.

I love the view from the path. The gigantic trees keep it nice and cool. There were a couple of groups of school kids up there with their teachers. One was a group of boys sprinting to their coach at the shrill of a whistle. The other group was of maybe twenty teenage girls. Joe and I purposefully let ourselves get surrounded by them as they walked. It was like being in a gaggle of geese. All talking at once with ponytails swinging back-and-forth… so cute.

This town is way too small for cars. Way too small. From our window we can see down the street which ends at our door (we’re on the second floor—first floor to Europeans). Our daily entertainment is to watch the cars trying to get around the corner without tearing their car apart on the stone walls. This morning a service truck had us mesmerized. 

Because of the crazy roads, bicycles are the norm here. As you know, Italians are the most fashion conscious people in the world… even on bicycles. Pretty ladies with dresses and high-heels and men in suits cruise to work on bikes. Children start off with trikes and the elderly end up on trikes. Every single wall in the city has horse loops for the reigns, which are now for the bike-locks.

At 5:30, we met our guide, Luca, ("Luca of Tuscany like a local") in front of the train station for a tour. He was a blast. He walked us through the city, stopping to explain odd things like the street that never gets any sunlight so it’s named the dark street (loosely translated). We made three food stops. 

The first was Pizzeria L. Pellegrini. The pizza cook shoveled pizzas in and out of the blazing oven. The unique local item was Cecina (Cheh-Cheena). It is basically a thin pie-shaped cake made from chickpeas. It was great.

Then we walked further until we came to one of the oldest shops in Lucca; Antica Bottega di Prospero dal 1790. The owner of this wine/salame/olive oil store served us himself. It was a great experience to have him quietly pouring our wine and then hovering in the background as Luca explained the olives, the oil, and the salame board. He closed up shop but stayed with us until we were done.

Next we went to a restaurant we’d eaten at before and had a mixed board of bruschetta. One had the dreaded anchovy. I’ve never tasted anchovy and I swore I would if the opportunity presented itself. Another thing I dislike is liver pate… so naturally one of the bruschetta had chicken liver pate. I tried them both. I would never order either one again, but the anchovy with bufala mozzarella was okay. I still don’t like liver pate. It was a very nice evening and I think taking a food tour with Luca is well worth your time. You can find him on Airbnb’s tour page for Lucca: Lucca Aperitivo Adventuretour… morning or night version. It’s very personal and small groups.

Today we made our first breakfast at our home… scrambled eggs. Then we went to our favorite café to order cappuccini. Then we came back to our street and bought tickets for the Guinigi Tower. It’s directly across the street from our door. At the top of the tower is a bunch of trees. I will admit right now that I did not climb the 232 steps to the top without multiple rests. Climbing that many steps with a mask on wasn’t fun, but it was worth it. Torre Guinigi dates back to the 1300s. I’ve been in much better towers on the inside. This one had all modern steps and quite a few metal steps. There’s something awe inspiring about climbing up ancient worn stone steps with thousands of years of wear and tear. However the view from the top from under the ancient trees was pretty special.

They have little outdoor market places everywhere. I discovered the chocolate market! Oh yeah… I’m weak when it comes to chocolate. Next to the chocolate market is a giant sculpture of a person in a hoody. Veronica explained that the industry of Lucca has been, and is, the manufacture of paper products. They have different themes for the art on display throughout the year. Right now it’s “Fear and Desire.” I don’t understand the hoody sculpture, but the others were interesting:

This woman is trying to make friends with the dog, who clearly is afraid yet desires the contact.

The tightrope-walker is wanting to get to the other side, in spite of the danger.

This giant bull doesn’t look afraid to me, but maybe he is?

This man wants the freedom to fly, but looking at his face you can see the excitement and fear.

Italia! Our first stop in Lucca

We crawled out of bed 24 hours ago. Sort of. We got up at 5:30 am for an 8:00 flight and now we’re flying over Ireland at 5:30 am, but of course it’s a nine-hour time difference. So it’s actually 8:30 pm back in California. That might explain why I’m awake writing my blog instead of sleeping. Oh well… I’ll sleep tomorrow. We lucked out and were able to upgrade to premium seats at the last second for only $230 each. Normally it’s three times that much. I recommend you check premium and first-class prices when you book your economy tickets. That way you will know if your being offered a good deal. I’d say we saved about fifteen-hundred bucks for these seats.

But, speaking of tomorrow/today, we’ll be landing in Rome at 8:00 am. The biggest dilemma is to find out what our Covid test results are. We got our noses swabbed Sunday morning. When we landed in Dallas, we still hadn’t gotten the test results back. The problem is, we may have to quarantine in Italy. We’ll see. We already had to fill out an online form to allow the Italian government to trace us if someone on this plane gets sick with Covid (which was a good thing because they wouldn’t let us board the plane in Sacramento without it).

From the Rome airport we’ll catch the airport train into Rome. We’ll change trains there for a high-speed train to Florence (I have a secret fear that we’ll sleep through the train stop and wake up in Milan or something). In Florence, we’ll change again to a local train to Lucca. When we get off that train, we’ll walk straight out to the city wall and find the tunnel with the stairs. After about ten minutes walking, we’ll arrive at our place. By that time we’ll be zombies. But, that’s okay. We’ll sleep for awhile and then go explore Lucca, our home for one week.

So far not much has happened. I read Black Beauty from Sacramento to Dallas. From Dallas to Rome I’ve watched Luca (an adorable movie about two little sea monsters who become boys and take up residence in Cinque Terre, Italy), Peter Rabbit II, then I watched Raya and The Last Dragon (another cute movie about dragons and saving the world). During that time I managed to not notice my water bottle was leaking. Now I have wet britches. Traveling is such an adventure, right?

Well, a lot’s happened since that last note. When we landed we signed onto the free wifi at the airport before going into customs to find our test results, which were negative. Then we hustled through customs and never had to show the results. We bought train tickets at the airport kiosk and walked for five minutes to find the train. The first ticket doesn’t say where to get off the train… we kept going and going and finally I got desperate enough to ask another passenger via google translate. She waved her arms around dramatically and mimicked getting off the train and getting the train going the way we’d just come from—towards the airport. This seemed odd, but we did it. We went back to one of the stops that was bigger and dragged our luggage to a customer service desk. In limited English he told us we were screwed and had to go to the ticket office. The not-so-gracious lady at the ticket office issued us new tickets after chewing us out for not getting off at the correct stop. We were baffled. She extended a hand for all my tickets and pointed to the next ticket which had the correct STARTING point for that ticket! How was I supposed to know that? Just my opinion, but I think the first ticket should’ve had both the start and stop, like a plane ticket. We ended up going to Florence, then Pisa, then Lucca. By-the-way, we did have to show our vaccination shots on the trains.

But we’re here now. At the point of shear exhaustion, we walked straight forward from the train station towards the city wall and found the tunnel and stairs going through the wall. We went down little cobble stone streets until we came to ours. Right across the street from the famous Torre Guinigi (a medieval tower with trees growing on top). It makes it easy to find our place :) Just as I reached for the door, the landlady opened it and welcomed us in.

We were starving and wiped out. I knew I couldn’t eat another protein bar, so we scurried to the central plaza to grab a bite and a beer and wine. By the way the wine I got is excellent and local. Joe kept dozing off at the table, so we went back and slept for a couple of hours and headed back out for groceries (okay—beer, wine, milk). Then we slept like babies for nine hours.

Today we went for real groceries then we drank espresso and ate paninis. But one of the high-lights of this whole trip was meeting our old friend, Veronica for lunch. We met her fifteen years ago at a Club Med and have stayed in touch ever since. She came to Lucca to have lunch with us. She treated us to a meal at one of the oldest restaurants in the area, Ristorante All’Olivo. Afterwards she gave us a little tour of Lucca.

As you all know, I am fascinated by odd behavior. In Italy, it’s odd to be drunk. It’s a cultural no-no. So, we’re standing there chatting with Veronica near one of the cathedrals and I noticed there’s this dude sitting on the steps being a little loud and unruly. He was with another guy and a lady. Next thing I know the buddy leaves and the unruly guy passes out, with his head on the girl’s lap. His bear bottle rolls away about five feet. None of that is that interesting, but the Italian’s reaction to it was priceless. The tourists glanced at him and kept going. The Italians glared as they went past. Their expressions were so fun to watch; anger, embarrassment, disgust. They shook their heads and muttered. Even the teens looked amazed. Veronica said this just doesn’t happen, especially not in the city center. I’m sure his parents have received several phone calls today!