Lucca

After two full days in Venice we trained back through Florence on our way to Lucca, a small town in Tuscany about 1 hour East of Pisa. We had not originally planned on stopping through Lucca, but having heard about how much fun a work colleague had while vacationing there a few years ago I wanted to try and spend a little time there. Danielle and I originally wanted to rent a car for a few days to explore the hill towns of Tuscany, but I could not get the international driving permit now legally mandated in Italy for all foreigners that plan to drive in Italy. Despite this when we had a couple of days left toward the end of our trip (and had decided not to travel north to the Czech republic) we decided to go to Lucca.

We to took a cab to our hostel and drove through one of the portals - an opening in the huge protecting wall that surrounds the "old" city and separates it from the more modern surrounding town. The hostel, Ostello San Frediano, was a old monastery that had an amazing 13th-century exterior mosaic Christ in Majesty - made with glittering gold tiles. The rooms were a bit spartan, but comfortable and clean (minus the hair that Danielle found in her sheets prompting her to force me to switch beds with her) and had the highest vaulted ceilings I think either of us had slept below. After checking in we headed across the street to a pizza place.

At this point in the trip I was still feeling sick. Nothing too bad just the same GI issues. As a result my appetite was not too great. Despite this I managed to muscle down a huge 12" pizza that night. It tasted great, but didnt feel that way (it was at this point that Danielle's support of my illness began to wane). After mowing down dinner we decided to take a walk through the city to scope things out for the next day. The city center of Lucca is surrounded by ancient ramparts and is packed in pretty tight. This made for easy walking among all of the sites. One of the first buildings that we came across was the Toro di Oro, the tower of gold. This is the tallest and oldest tower in the city crowned with an observation deck containing a bell that has rung every 15min for centuries. It was a full moon that night and the observation deck was open to the public. Danielle and I ventured up the 15 stories or so to check it out. The deck offered stunning views of the city and there were three telescopes set up at the top pointed at the moon.

The next morning we headed out to check out the city. Lucca was literally given to Napoleon's sister as a gift when Napoleon ruled Italy. She turned the ancient ramparts that surround the city into a park. The result is a magnificent partially paved park elevated above and surrounding the entire city. The circumference of the ramparts is just over 2 miles. To get a feel for the city and enjoy the views we walked to the south side of town and rented bicycles. We circled the city a few times stopping intermittently to look down on the city, drink some water, take pictures, or just rest. (Note to Sharon: the Buckeye trees in Lucca were also all browned)





During the bike ride we noticed a pretty garden in the back of one of the palaces that we decided to visit later in the day. As it turned out the palace was Palazzo Pfanner. Pfanner was a wealthy beermaker who supposedly brought beer to Italy. He had a son or two, one of which was a physician and was a local hero. A large portion of the museum inside the palace consists of medical instruments and textbooks from the son. In the back of the palace, facing the ramparts, was the garden. It had a beautiful grove of lemon trees surrounding a circular fountain. A number of statues were situated facing the central fountain.

After browsing the museum and resting in the garden for a while we headed back toward the center of the historic city. In the main square of town there was a bustling market adjacent to the cities main church. Dozens of tents set up where people were selling olives, sweets, clothing, and other goods. Most of it dollar store type plastic stuff. Danielle found it interesting that even in this small city the market was totally run by immigrants. Of course she managed to pick out the jewels among the garbage (Cassie, this is where your red tin cup came from). One of the tents was dedicated to making these deep fried donuts things which were slight variations on the sugar donut. This version had a ton of sweetened lemon in the batter which added a little zest. It was actually pretty good.

The other highlight of the market was the "tin man." This was one of those guys you see basically in every city in the world where tourists congregate. The idea is paint yourself in a single color, stand on some sort of pedestal where you can be seen, and be as still as you can while tourists, naturally entertained by the idea of a person standing still, throw change in an overturned hat. You've seen a variation on the theme somewhere. This guy was painted silver. Unfortunately for him he decided to bring his Chihuahua to work on the day we were in the market. He was so attentive to his dog that he was unable to stay still for more than about 10 seconds. Every few seconds he was looking down to check on the dog and about every 2 minutes he would get down, pet and play with his dog. Needless to say he was not making much money.

On the way out of town we stopped by the Lucca branch of Santa Maria Novella. After that we walked to the train station to head back to Rome. We stopped through Pisa and only had about a 45 min layover (not quite enough to get into the city and see the field of miracles). The train was delayed and we ended up waiting there for much longer. The train ride to Rome was easy though we spent a fair amount of it in the dining car nursing my stomach.

Once back in Rome (we got in around 9PM) we took the subway to the Spanish steps one last time and walked out for dinner. We found a restaurant from on of the guidebooks that ended up being ok, but nothing special. We then wandered back to the same hotel that we stayed in when we were in Rome two weeks earlier stopping by a few of the fountains on the way. Our flight left at 10am the next morning.

On the way home we flew right over the cliffs of Dover which was kind of cool to see from the air.