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Published: November 20th 2006
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Lucca Torre Guinigi
What's that on the tower? A bird? A plane? Some trees? Our whirl-wind Culinary Tour week starts today with a guided tour of the walled city of Lucca. Our group on the Culinary Tour consists of five couples (including ourselves) and two women who were repeats from one of the 2005 tours. In the morning, we boarded our short bus and headed into Lucca. We all moved about as a cluster, with Doris and Doug showing us the wall. This wall is probably more back fill than bricks, but is wider than any of their streets. There are ten or so baluardi (battlements) that could hold alot of people defending the city; now, they are park-like areas. You can rent bikes and ride the walls, or stroll as we did. This early tour was in actuallity an excuse to kill time until we had our reservation for lunch. But, what a lunch! Lunch at the Buca di Sant' Antonio, a restaurant begun in 1794 (and Pat thought Hoigaard's had been in business a long time), was a total gastronomical delight. Doris even had the Maitre'd give those who were interested a tour of the wine cellar. Everyone came away feeling overstuffed and glad we were going to be walking it off on
Baluardo
Baluardo San Paolino. Yes, they're named. the guided tour.
After lunch, we were met by Gabriele Calabrese (one of "thousands" who were Doris' cousins) and who was our walking-tour guide for the first day. Gabriele pointed out the history of this unique, fortified Tuscan town. As you will see from our pictures, we learned of the city's most famous son, Giacomo Puccini. He is considered one of the greatest opera composers of all time, and according to Gabriele, was a bit of a lady's man. Puccini is famous for such classic operas as
La Boheme, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, and
Turnandot. His childhood house is undergoing a renovation by his now elderly, illegitimate daughter who insisted on paying for it completely, instead of the government. It may never be completed because she's broke and needs the remaining funds for her care.
No tour of any city in Europe would be complete without visiting the entire complement of basilicas, cathedrals, and assorted lesser chiesas (churches), all conveniently located next to a financial institution. This was because, per Gabriele, Christ only drove the money changers out of the temple, not out of the neighborhoods. Each important chiesa tourist stop had a beggar stationed at the door collecting
Baluardo Innurds
Views of the inner workings of one battlement; Baluardo Santa Maria. money for the church with a portion (large) of the proceeds going into the benevolent beggar fund, a.k.a. pocket. At one entrance, alms would activate the kindly, manual door-opening mechanism; a lack of alms would slam the door shut on you.
We saw the Church of San Michele in Foro (with the coin-activated door), The Church of San Giovanni (which used to be the old Cathedral), the Cathedral of San Martino (with it's bell tower built in three stages), and the government areas around the Piazza Napoleone (the little twerp conquered this "big" city and built the square in his sister's honor).
The tour ended at the far end of town where an anfiteatro romano (Roman ampitheater) had been. Nowadays, the area is a conglomeration of small shops, ristorantes, and other buildings built on the footprint of the old foundation. We think this is probably a much better usage of the space. We all split up and shopped, wandered, and otherwise saw areas away from foot traffic. Then for dinner and drinks, we met everyone back at GiroVita, a small ristorante on the Piazza San Marco (the cathedral).
Afterwards we went to a concert at the Villa
Baluardo Innurds due
Views of the inner workings of one battlement; Baluardo Santa Maria. Mansi. This is just up the hill from la Volpe and was a place that held fond memories for Doris. The villa was very beautiful with its Murano glass chandelier in the ballroom, but the building was in need of some repair. The concert was a collection of a video, titled Bubbles, and music by Stefano, a "New Age Classical" musician that Doris knew. This video was part of an award winng composition shown at the Italian International Clean Water Institute (or something like that). The video showed bubbles created by something off screen, that would float by (along with the occasional flotsom turd) and burst. The musician would play the waterglasses, paint cans, and xylophone as they burst. It was interesting when the musician pulled out a trombone equiped with a funnel and long tube, and blew it for all he was worth, in a clear vat of colored water. No structure to these sounds, just sounds. The unanimous vote? New Age can keep this "classical" composition. We all raced to duck out and get on the bus to go home.
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