The Bahblog

Lucca has long been one of my favorite Tuscan towns as I have fond memories of leisurely riding a bike along the wall with my parents and eating gelato after. Thus, I was very excited to show Lucca to Nate. We took a 9am train on Wednesday morning and got to Lucca around 10:30. It was pouring when we arrived and for our whole time there.

We started by doing a quick walking tour to orient ourselves. For some background, Lucca is surrounded by a perfectly intact Roman wall. The train station is outside of the wall, so we started our walk by going through one of the large city gates. The town itself is small and you could walk from one end to another in 20-25 minutes. We strolled all around it during our (wet) time there and got a taste of life in Lucca.

We stopped in the San Giovanni Church, which has ancient Roman ruins including some beautiful mosaics, graffiti, and ancient hot tubs.

For lunch, we had giant slices of pizza with prosciutto on top. It was delicious and exactly what we needed to warm up.

We finished our time in Lucca by going up on the wall. I had planned for us to rent bikes, but it was raining even harder so we scraped that plan (a reason to return!). Our time in Lucca definitely didn't go as I had expected, but it was still a lovely morning and wonderful to return to the town.

It was a quick 30 minute train trip from Lucca to Pisa. We got off the train and Pisa Centrale and took our time walking to the tower. It wasn't raining in Pisa and the sun was even starting to come out so we soaked up every bit of the blue sky.

We stopped at a mural, Tuttomondo (Whole Wide World) done by Keith Haring a year before he died. I'm a big fan of Keith Haring and it was a treat to see some of his work in an unexpected location.

We then strolled over the bridge and walked past the bustling university.

Eventually we ended up at the Field of Miracles (yes, that's actually what it's called). I had bought tickets for us to climb the tower but we had about 30 minutes before our time slot.

The time passed very, very quickly watching strangers throw their arms and legs in the air at odd angles to try to get a picture of them "holding" the Tower of Pisa. We don't want to post photos of strangers on this blog, but ask us sometime to see all of the ridiculous poses we saw. The below photo does not include a face.

The tower climb was nice but very strange. It truly felt like you were hiking up a tilting tower and ricocheting off of the walls as you ascended. The views from the top of the duomo were fabulous.

We also got some wonderful views of more people doing the Pisa "dance."

After climbing the tower we went in the church. It's not quite as impressive as Florence's duomo, but it's still beautiful. There is a wonderful altarpiece done by Pisano and a copy of the chandelier that inspired Galileo's science experiments.

We then went back outside and spent more time watching people pose for pictures in front of the tower. Naturally, we had to take our own funny photos so we'd have something to post on the blog.

Dinner was supposed to be at a restaurant we found online with wonderful reviews, but we discovered that the restaurant was literally right by the tower and had a menu in various languages. We decided to go somewhere a bit off the beaten path an ended up at a beer bar. Orzo Bruno. It was filled with college students and served large beers and delicious food at very cheap prices. It was exactly what we wanted.

We took a 9:30 train to Florence and got back at 10:30.