Sunday 21 July 2013
Well our cultural experience of Tuscany continued today. We set off at 8.00am (Marcello our bus driver brought Mrs Marcello with him today) by bus to the town of Lucca. Lucca ( http://lucca.ca/index.html ) is an enclosed town completely surrounded by a wall. It is beautiful and obviously very, very old. Beautiful old buildings and cobbled streets and laneways. We wandered around and of course enjoyed a gelato as a very warm day once again. Would love to go back to Lucaa again and experience staying a night or two as very special place.
After Lucca we then headed to the town of Pisa ( http://pisaitaly.ca/ ) and yes the tower is still leaning. They have strengthened the tower so that is now open again to the public to climb if they wish. Of course we did the expected touristy photo's so that it looks like we are supporting the tower. You just have to do it! The tower, church, etc is surrounded by lawn areas which you are not to enter. Do you think the tourists obey, of course not... Was quite comical to watch with everyone doing their posing for photo's on the lawn and then the police coming along with whistles to herd them off. Naturally once the police went then the tourists hopped on to the lawn again. I think it becomes a bit of a game to the police but no-one seemed to mind and it was amusing to watch. We got back to San Baranto about 5.00pm and everyone was tired and hot and sticky so all were hanging out for a shower or swim.
Our dinner was at wonderful ristorante at the top of San Baronto. This was the final dinner with the group as a whole as some were departing the next day to continue their travels. Once again we had soooooo much food with course after course and consumed a substantial amount of alcohol. All good fun and nothing better than sitting outside with good food, wine and very funny conversations. One of the locals was doing transport shuttles for us at the end of the evening from ristorante to our hotel as bit of a way to walk. View spectacular but don't think I would like to do the drive all the time as very narrow roads and lots of sharp bends.
