Italia Grandiosa - Lucca

I woke up at 6.00. After breakfast we left at 7.45. We traveled a long time towards Lucca. We had a stop at an Autogrill again. I started to get the concept by now. It would have been ok if they would kick out all of these school kids that didn’t wait in line.
We arrived at a farm close to Lucca at 11.45. We were shown around on the farm. They produce wine, olive oil and other stuff there. It is a bit f a tourist trap, but as we were early, it wasn’t too bad. Lunch there was fun, because each table had 4 bottles of wine to taste. 2 whites and 2 reds. The reds weren’t that good, and they were a bit too warm. Lunch consisted out of tasting different kinds of ham ( good ), tasting bread with oil ( hate that ) and tasting olives. The meat and wine was good, but why would someone like to eat bread and oil? Many people of our group bought some wine or some oil.
After lunch we went to Lucca. Due to the wine everyone in the bus was cheerful In Lucca we rented bicycles and we were shown around by a local guide. The city walls are wide enough to cycle on. The total length of the wall is 4.2 km. The old center of Luca is very charming. It’s has many old buildings and nice restaurants. We cycled for around 2 hours and saw the highlights of Lucca. Lucca is the birth town of Puccini ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Puccini ), and they are very proud of him now. When he was still alive they weren’t that proud, because he was living together with his girlfriend (Elvira Gemignani ), while she was still married to another. They married later when her husband passed away.
After the cycle tour we had 1.5 hours to ourselves. I walked back to the Piazza Anfiteatro and did buy some souvenirs. The town has some good shopping possibilities, especially in jewelry. We took the bus again and left for our hotel. It was a 1,5 hour drive to get there, but it was a nice hotel.
We stayed at hotel Baia de Sonrissa in Castiglioncello. The view of the bay was very nice. The location wasn’t chosen wise though, because we drove the same road to get there 4 times. It would have made a difference of 1,5 hours traveling if we would have stayed close to Pisa. We had dinner at 20.00 and I went to sleep at 22.00.

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