World Adventure

27 Sep 12 Lucca
I believe that Napolean liked Lucca so much that he gave it to his sister. We caught an early train from Florence and initially were unaware that we were travelling with a columbian and  and an australia woman and child from Melbourne. The columbian was unusual as her parents were german so was blue eyed, blond and pale skinned and she said there were not many like her. She had lived in germany for 5 years as she held dual citizenship but returned to columbia as she missed the warmth of the people and the comfort of home. The australian asked me in poor italian if I spoke english but I was not listening and responded that I only spoke english which was the right response i guess. We played peak a boo with her cheeky son for a while before arriving at Lucca.Note the lack of names. We rarely ask people we meet travelling their names we just seem to skip the formalities and get chatting. - it doesn't seem important.
There were no signs at the train station so it was a 50-50 choice of direction. The columbian went one way and we went the other. We got lucky. Once outside of the train station the impressive walls of the old city are instantly revealed.
Vanessa and I had arrived before the tour buses so the city was relatively quiet and wandered from one side to the other. It is quite a large walled city and has a relaxed feel about it with people walking and riding pushbikes. The streets are narrow and buildings tall and uniform but individual. Most shops are aimed at tourism or retail but blend well. There are enough secrets to discover walking around and a map is not really necessary. We visited the main church/cathedral which was an impressive piece of architecture.  
One of the most interesting parts of the town is the amphitheatre which is a an oval of buildings following the boundary of the missing roman amphitheatre. The inner section is a large paved courtyard which now carries the chatter of tourists. We left and it was not long before Vanessa started following the smell of fresh bread only to discover a extremely popular local pizza outlet. We sat down for a snack of a couple of slices of pizza and while we were eating the queue was out the door and into the street. The pizza was good.
I like this place as it is easy to step away from the tourist streets and find interesting sections which are not normally visited. For me this is the tolerable balance when looking at heavily touristed areas. I can move in and out of the chaos.
Vanessa and I wandered to another wall and climbed up for Lunch. I was grumbling about needing to pay for the toilets and suggested that we have a reciprocal agreement in Australia where all toilets have swipe card entry and only the toilet charging countries have to pay. It turned out the toilet nearby was closed? what? We were heading back to the centre of town when we found a museum which was free of charge and it had a toilet. It was an interesting exhibit and a floor mosaic was being  patiently repaired at the time.
We didn't finish looking around the city but were tired and satisfied with the visit. It would be nice to explore it again and probably a nice spot to stay for a while and relax.