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Blogs from Lucca, Tuscany, Italy, Europe
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April 25th 2013
Todays gelato flavour(s) ,yes I indulged in two today - Fragola(rich in strawberries,yum) and Malaga(rum and raisin) The surprises keep coming for us as we travel around Italy and today there was another that we certainly didn't expect but more about that later. Breakfast was another rather 'sombre' occasion with no background music to soften the room sound a bit.Every time one got up to check the toast etc the chair legs made an awful noise on the tiled floor and you had the sense the others in the room all stared.It got to a point that we picked the chair up with hands under the seat so the legs didn't scrape the tiles. The German couple were back again from yesterday morning.They look so serious that you want to suggest they lighten up on life.We ... read more
April 22nd 2013
Ciao! We’ve been in Italy for two weeks now and are living on a diet of pizza, risotto, pasta and ice cream (and our first BBQ of the trip!) which is gorgeous but I imagine will show on the scales! Italy seems to be much faster passed than France, still with the long lunches where everything closes down from 12-4, bigger waist lines and scarier roads! We thought that French drivers were a bit mental….but all is forgiven! A lot of the roads here seem to have lost their markings, their edges, and the resulting free for all can be interesting especially as everyone’s in a rush (but then the shops do close at midday!). The language thing is harder too, as even though before we left I would have said I couldn’t speak a word ... read more
November 27th 2012
Dear Max and Dominic, On our last weekend here we went to see two cities that we thought would round off our time in Italy. Lucca is a small city, about the same size as Nelson and Richmond put together, and it is very beautiful. Back in the time when it was dangerous to live in Italy because there were small wars every few years between the big cities, Lucca built a massive wall around itself. It takes about an hour to walk around it. The wall is so thick and strong that you can easily walk on top of it and even cannons wouldn't be able to break it down. It is much wider than a house - kind of like a dam made out of earth with bricks on the outside. This wall was ... read more
June 24th 2012
Lucca to Bologna 12th June to 19th June 2012 Tuesday 12th June 2012 We leave for Lucca via Arezzo as it looked like a scenic drive through the mountains. It was a fantastic drive and Tom figured that the road was OK as a few buses and large trucks came past us, so that meant is was OK for camper. Soon we started to climb and then comes some serious climbing, then the clouds and on with the fog lights front and rear. Reach the top and start to descend, whilst watching the TomTom to see where the road goes as the fog is so thick. The road winds back on itself constantly and the descent is steeper than the ascent. A bit hairy. We come out of the ... read more
May 15th 2012
While I'm starting to get the bug bad for visting the rest of the country, on Tuesday I set off with my cousin Arianna to visit the local town of Lucca by foot and on bike. Lucca has, among its narrow, narrow streets, once protective walls, and many piazzas, famously 100 chaese, or churches. Its history goes back a long ways, as you can imagine, and I will get into the walls and some of the history as I learn to translate the local story from Italian. I learned a little about the history of the competitive development of churches in Lucca. As some of my pictures show the size of churches and especially their connected torre (towers) were a sign of power, and of course wealth. Over the years, when local people of power got ... read more
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May 10th 2012
Thanks to some jet lag, I woke up at 5 a.m., Italian time, to a serious chorus of birdsong outside my window. I arrived in the heart of spring, and the birds are going crazy in the midst of doing what birds and bees do, comprende! I certainly had enough NRG to grab my lenses and head outside as the birds were singing like crazy and sunrise was approaching. I discovered, embarrassingly, that my hosts had the house alarm armed at the time, and so yeah...you guessed it, I woke all of those who were lucky enough to be sleeping at the time... ':~p I was forgiven, and so I made my way outside, and explored my way around the property with camera in hand. The tule fog and sun rays cast through it were amazing ... read more
October 27th 2011
La Dolce Vita “The Good Life” Saturday 8th October to Saturday 15th October Feeling a bit sad about leaving, but looking forward to our next destination, we left Malcesine and headed back to Verona by taxi to take the train to Lucca in Tuscany. 3 changes and 4 hours later we arrived feeling rather exhausted and in need of....surprise surprise.... a nice meal. We were staying just outside of Lucca in a renovated barn of an old Tuscan Villa (built in the 1700’s). The villa itself was huge, with acres and acres of land on which there was a swimming pool, vegetable garden (where we picked our own veg) and row after row of olive trees. At first we were a bit worried about how we would get in to Lucca as there didn’t seem to ... read more
July 26th 2011
The dreaming stage Its was back at Christmas 2010 and I was stuck in Kuwait due to problems with visas. I was a bit feed up and so to give myself something to look forward to I began to plan a summer road trip to the Alps. My first thoughts were to take in some of the great passes through the Alps. This would take me into Italy, which i love and so my thoughts logically moved south and into north Tuscany and the Garfagnana, which I already knew and had fond memories of family holidays. But where to after Tuscany? Well Corsica is somewhere I always wanted to visit, and it has great roads and some amazing mountains, plus the famous and tough GR20 trail. The route home from Corsica naturally leads onto France, Provence ... read more
July 16th 2011
Ciao il mio amici! That means, hi my friends! After we left Rome, we drove to Perugia, where our friend, Mimi, lives. We stayed there for one night and went to Assisi, a place where Saint Francesco's tomb is and it is very religeous. At our hotel we had a nice pool that Ethan and I swam in. We also went and had dinner in a big castle that Daddy said was haunted. I think he was joking. The next day we drove with our friend Mimi up to Lucca in Tuscany. We stayed in another hotel that had a pool. Lucca is an amazing place with old walls and old buildings. There was a concert with Elton John going on there. We ate more gelato. Everyday Ethan and I have gelato, I always have lemon ... read more
July 15th 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011 Early Morning Photos This morning I rose early to take photos of the statues by the Uffizi. I hadn’t taken any photos of the statues on the day I went to the gallery, and by the afternoon the piazza was filled with people. The morning was my best way to get up close without fighting the crowds. There was actually a sign that said “no photo” by these statues, but I don’t know how you can police people when the statue is outside. There were in fact two policemen in the square, watching me as I snapped my camera. They didn’t say anything. I think they were there to make sure I did not attack any of the statues. The one piece I really wanted to see was right up front, Perseus ... read more
