Lucca, a Day Off

Lucca reached out and grabbed our imagination and wouldn’t let go – this is a great little town and we love it.  A lot has to do with it being an actual town –  Italian people who live here.  The relative absence of tour busses helps.  But it is more than that.  This is just a very nice place.

We had an entire day of nothing to do but wander.  We got up late (it is very quiet here and I made it to 0700, a record, I think).  We had a nice breakfast in our apartment after a nice dinner last night in our apartment.

The view from our upstairs -- Lorie calls it the lunar capsule.  I don't know about that but
it is way coo

Lucca skyline

The tower next door with its 6 "magical" oak trees

Lucca

A traditional Luccasnese sweet bread

Piazza Napoleone

 Then we wandered as we were supposed to.  The first thing we noticed was all of the local kids – maybe 10 to 15 years old – running around town throwing flour on each other and spraying each other with shaving cream.  We cornered three kid and asked what was going on.  They explained that it is the last day of school and the tradition is to skip school and throw flour on other kids an whatever.  They told us to look out, since nobody can be spared.  We took great care after that because at least one of the kids looked like she wanted to nail us as soon as we turned our back!

Pranks on the last day of school

This was a lazy day and we appreciated it.  We took the 25 km train ride to Pisa since Lorie had not seen the tower and we checked it out.  About 15 minutes was enough.  Yes, the tower is leaning still and so is the bapistry.

The church in Pisa

The famous tower

The bapistry leans a bit, too -- it was not the negronis!

For a king's ransom you can walk to the top

Thousands of folk have fun taking photos of them holding up the tower

Leaning, but not as badly

 Back in Lucca we stumbled into a small shop that had all sorts of stuffed pastas and pesto that was really good.  So, after a negroni, we bought five different types of pasta, pesto, region parmigiana and some wine and made a fantastic dinner in the apartment.

Negronis and snacks -- Lorie says that the things on the left at "Bugles" that she
remembers from when she was a kid

Meat in the left, artichoke on the right

Pumpkin on top, ricotta on the bottom

The whole setup

A good local Chianti

AirBnBs allow you to cook your own stuff -- good or bad.  And IMO this was
good.

Tomorrow we're off for the coast and CInque Terre.  Sadly, it is our last real day of riding.  I always feel a bit melancholy when we reach this point but we still have some good adventures to come.

Buono Sera,