9.26 - Monday Part I - Lucca

AROUND THE WALL ONE MORE TIME TIZIANA

Monday 26 Sept is the Official Girare-U Day in Lucca.  

Seriously, if you don’t make at least 4 girare-u’s while trying to find the tourist office in Piazza Santa Maria, and don’t stop at least 4 people to ask directions, who have absolutely no idea of what your talking about, and if you don’t miss the turn to Porta Santa  Maria at least twice, then you missed participating in the Official Girare-U day... and you are also NOT the Wacky American Tourist and the Ever Lovely Dragon Lady.

This was just the midway point of our day trip to Lucca.  The morning started off a bit late as Chucky pulled another all-nighter doing NOWATS, and DL refused to roll out when the alarm went off, but otherwise… breakfast at Il Pianaccio was still pretty neat.

Instead of the patio as we expected, we had our croissants, yogurt, strudel etc indoors… it was a bit windy out this morning, but the view was still Drop Dead Gorgeous. and after dawdling with other new guests, a couple from Amsterdam, we realized we had used up our travel F.U.F allowance [F#%k Up Factor] which insured there would be an inordinate amount of girare-u’s because we had a 10AM meet with our guide and  you know what that means: The First rule of Murphy’s. If anything could possibly go wrong, at the worst possible moment, it will.  

Soooooo, after finally getting better directions from the tour agency, we find our guide Tiziana Camaiori tizianacama@hotmail.com at the Tourist info Office, 1 hour late, and of course, they have just this morning booked another tour for her right behind us, so we can’t run overtime. She assures us that since we are doing the tour on bikes, we can easely do the tour in 2 hours. Sooooo we pick out a couple of bikes, get a couple of locks because, loose bikes are a  real commodity in these parts, and as Chucky finds his seat un-adjustable and changes bikes, he promptly leaves his lock on the first bike and doesn’t notice it until they need to use it… on the other side of town.  Oh welllllll.

Tiziana was excellent.  A proud native of Pisa, she does tours in 3 languages, in Firenze, Lucca And Pisa.  And started with the fact that Lucca had been the second largest Italian city state (after Venice) with a republican constitution ("comune") to remain independent over the centuries.  Our tour started us off riding along the wall, a shaded path all the way around Lucca.  more on that later.

First stop was Palazo Pfanner  which dates back to 1660 and the Moriconi family, members of the Lucca merchant nobility.  Bankruptcy in 1680 forced the Moriconi family to sell the building to the Controni family, silk merchants.  Due to its outstanding architectural features it has been used as a location for several films.  click the link à  Palazo Pfanner  for more a info on the Palazo

We then heard about the wall and its part in protecting Lucca during various city state wars and the design allowing for the ultimate defense.  Clickà [http://www.knowital.com/html/lucca_-_the_town_walls.html ]

Lucida's Pond

Next up was the Botanical Garden and the story of the countess Lucida Mansi who sold her soul to the devil in order to keep her youthful appearance, when devil came to claim her soul, she ran all through Lucca in a chariot which crashed into the pond in the garden, and her face purportedly appears in the pond on the night of the full moon. Clickà http://tuscany.travel/en/art-history-culture/legends-and-misteries/lucida-mansi-from-lucca/

In 1805, Lucca was conquered by Napoleon, who installed his sister Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi  as  "Queen of Etruria". An ardent philanthropist she is revered to this day in Lucca

Then we were off to several Cathedrals [rocks ruins and temples as usual] including San Martino Cathedral which houses the Volto Santo di Lucca– The Holy Face of Lucca. click the links for quite a story.  Also note that the cathedrals  upper facades pillars are all different, the people of Lucca held a contest for masons to design the columns, they liked the samples so much, they kept them all. Before concluding our tour Tziana gave us  directions on several things we could do on our own and she was ready to meet her group of 20.

We happily returned our bikes [aching butts and all], found the missing lock just where Chucky left it and

bidding Tiziana farewell, we decided instead to find a free wireless hotspot to post Ciao Venezia, used up our allotted 1 hour in 24 and headed off to find something to do, in Viareggio on the coast… Tuscany’s Beach.

We'll cover Viaraggio in the next installment, but for now, just click the links for more about Lucca.

Ciao 4 Now

Uncle Chuck & The still mighty sore from the bike ride ,  Dragon Lady

Finally enjoying Fine Tuscan Wine, Aged Sharp Cheese & Great Crusty Bread