Antiquing in Lucca

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It's great how you can wake up on a Sunday morning and decide on the spot to visit a little town in Tuscany. For me that town was Lucca. All day it was raining so luckily there wasn't a whole lot of sightseeing in Lucca. There's a Cathedral, a Baptistry on ancient ruins, a couple of nice piazzas, nicely preserved medieval fortification walls, and a museum. That's all we managed to find of typical touristy things to do. What made the trip memorable was stumbling across an antiques market. From old furniture to books, from jewellery to farm equipment, from pots and pans to lace, coins and umbrellas. You name it, if it was old, it was there. These stalls were set up throughout all the little streets in the old town, surrounding the Cathedral. The whole time the rain was incredible, but for the first time I actually felt like I was in Italy. There were no tourists around, only locals. They were strolling around with big umbrellas or sitting by their wares, reading newspapers, smoking cigars or chatting with their neighbours. It was great, a real village atmosphere. Luckily for me, the weather didnt clear up until about an hour before I left. Luckily, because as soon as the sun came out, so did the tourists. The locals must think of us as they do pigeons, like a plague...

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Photos

inside the Cathedral
the big white sheet over what should be a nice altar means 'under renovation' - like half of Italy!

Piazza Amfiteatro
The medieval buildings had been built against the wall of the amphitheatre. That amphitheatre is now gone, and the big empty round space is all that remains