Lucca - visiting with the fam :)

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OMG talk about wifi withdrawals!!! You'll have to bear with me - I'm covering a few days in this one (starting from 27th, when we were still in Florence)...

Up early on Saturday and back to the Cattedrale di Santa Maria dell Fiore to climb the 463 steps of the Duomo di Firenze - we love to torture ourselves!! Then a much needed, yummy Italian coffee. Next, we visited the Leonardo Da Vinci museum (after walking right passed it several times and not being able to find it) then found somewhere to have pizza for lunch.
Back to the hostel to collect our bags and off we went to the train station, bound for Lucca. Dad was waiting for us, in their little rented Audi, ready to take us up the hill to the villa (or Casa Dell' Acqua, as it's known locally) that they've been calling home for two weeks. We were spoilt rotten - they had been excited to see us (as we were them) and went all out preparing for our arrival...locally sourced cheese, bread, cured meats, olives, olive oil and copious amounts of wine. Dad cooked his famous veal saltimbocca - so delicious!! I managed to get myself sufficiently intoxicated and was in a coma before 11pm. Hungover (for the first time this trip) and exhausted from all our travelling, I enjoyed a good, long sleep in. Then my afternoon was spent lounging about in the beautiful villa garden and admiring our amazing view of Lucca.
It's nice to have arrived at the relaxing part of our adventure - it was go, go, go for nearly 3 weeks!!
Nice short walk up the hill for dinner at A Palazzo on Sunday night - lovely little Italian restaurant with friendly service and delicious food, in a beautiful setting. Mario, our host, picked our wines - he spoke very little English but assured us (using gestures) that they were top notch! And they were... two bottles of white, two bottles of red and a bottle of prosecco, consumed between 5 of us. I spent a large part of the evening coming down with a cold, so took it easy on the drink. Mario also informed us that Lucca has a chestnut festival during September. They're certainly in season at the moment - can find chestnuts lying on the ground all over the place.
Back at the villa, a mix of anti-cold remedies were admitted (by my caring fellow travellers) before I went to bed - two echinacea tablets, one Mega B tablet, some squirts of a nazal spray called First Defence (most horrendous, painful, foul-tasting stuff to ever put up one's nose) and a honey-lemon tea. Long night's sleep, then up feeling fresh (and thankfully not too fluey) for our trip into Pisa. Said farewell to Penny at the airport (who had been visiting with Dad & Dominica in Lucca, since a couple of days before we got there) - made our way to The Campo dei Miracoli (aka 'The Field of Miracles') in Pisa, which is basically a big square. Had a wander around before Georgia and I climbed the Leaning Tower. It wasn't as big as I imagined. Only 45 people were allowed up at any one time and you had a maximum of 30 mins to check it out. Was a weird feeling - as soon as we entered the ground level, we could see (and feel) the angle. Walking up the stairs was strange too - some parts of the stairs felt really easy to climb, whilst other parts seemed much harder... guess it depended on where we were relative to the direction of the lean. Didn't hang around long - we returned to the airport, where the car was waiting, and were back in Lucca by 5pm. Must say, Dad did very well with driving on the other side of the road - particularly getting up and down the windy mountain road between our villa and town. Not sure who is crazier in Italy - the drivers or the pedestrians!?! Whilst in a taxi in Pisa, the young Italian driver was aggressively racing around the narrow streets, missing pedestrians by millimetres on several occasions. At one point he repeatedly tooted his horn at another car that was full of older Italian gentlemen - they expressed their disapproval with classic Italian gesturing...lol!! 😊
A quiet, relaxed evening at the villa - more Bellini's (my new favourite beverage... prosecco and peach juice), reading up on the Croatian language and working out what we are going to mail home. Yummy rabbit ragu with pasta for dinner and yet another early night.
Tuesday is market day in Lucca, so into town we went for some shopping. I was feeling rather crappy all day - the cold had moved down to my chest and gave me a nasty cough. But I soldiered on!! Lunch at caffe Dante, within the walls of Lucca (while all the shops were closed for siesta) - then hit the supermarket and home to the villa. Can't believe our visit with Dad and Min has already come to an end - we were looking forward to it so much!! Dad cooked us steak florentine for our last meal with them - Georgia prepared the sides...peperonata and rosemary potatoes (I just sat around feeling unwell). Got to enjoy the nightly Angelus at 6pm, for the last time (bells playing at the local church ...accompanied by howling of many neighbouring dogs). Dominica (Min) explained how our Eurail passes work (after realising we had been buying tickets when we didn't have to) - will make train travel much easier (and cheaper) from now on. Desert, wine and good conversation, before another experimental remedy to help me try to get better (glass of hot red wine), then off to bed. Woken during the night to a thunderstorm - wet and cool for our last day in Lucca. After breakfast and packing, Dad and Min drove us into the train station and saw us off. Bittersweet to have left the beautiful villa - we loved it there but we're also excited to head over to Croatia for the next phase of our journey. Took three trains to get to from Lucca to Ancona, where we boarded our overnight ferry for Croatia. Had an interesting train ride between Lucca and Prato...lots of school kids heading home for siesta. The rebels (presumably from the local school of hard knocks) got on our carriage, rolled a joint, used a bottle opener to unlock the door leading to the neighbouring carriage, where they smoked said joint, all whilst pumping electronica / dance music out of a portable radio. To them we were just part of the furniture - no doubt they assumed we didn't speak Italian, obviously being tourists (backpacks give it away every time), so they happily continued their antics as though we weren't even there. The next two legs on the train were much less eventful and we even got to enjoy first class seats between Bologna and Ancona. Once arrived, we had to get a bus from the station to the terminal for check-in. Then another bus to the actual dock... what a mission!!! At least we got to see a lot of the beautiful Italian countryside and east coast beachfront, whilst on the train. Finally, we were on the ferry!! We settled into our little cabin (bunk beds with a basin, but no toilet or shower) and went for a walk to check out the onboard amenities. Sat down at the ferry restaurant early. Weren't sure if we should speak to them in Italian or Croatian - took a punt on Italian, only for the waiter to tell us he speaks English!! Full bellies and in bed before we'd even left port (both of us hoping this would minimise any chance of motion sickness). No mobile service in our cabin, but we did manage to briefly utilise some wifi (from various local sources) whilst up on deck.
Our plan to get an early night's sleep was not meant to be... Apparently our cabin was located very close to the car levels because we got to enjoy a spontaneous choir of car alarms. It wasn't just one at a time - at least two and sometimes three. If that wasn't enough, we had a couple of very loud American tourists in the cabin next door. Oh well, at least we were able to see the funny side - cracked up laughing every time the car alarms started going off... what could we do?! Thankfully it didn't last all night. Or if it did, we didn't notice - we had dosed ourselves up on the good old travelcalm!! I did wake up on occasion to the slamming shut of nearby cabin doors. And poor Ms Georgia also had to deal with my coughing
😞 😞 Despite all this, we were up at 6am for breakfast and on land in Split by 7:30. After finding an ATM to get some local currency (Kuna), we were able to buy a map and get pointed in the general direction of our little apartment, which lies within the walls of Diocletian's Palace (right in the city centre). We were told to enter via the Silver Gate, so of course we did a couple of laps around the Palace (backpacks on) looking for a silver gate. Ended up calling because we couldn't find it - the entrance is called the Silver Gate but it is actually limestone.
So here we are, drinking coffee at the Korta restaurant, which also doubles as the reception for our accommodation. And we have quality wifi!! Woohoo!! 😊 😊 😊
We are officially passed the half way mark now!! Guess it's true...time flies when you're having fun 😊 😊

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