That's Amore

I’m in love. That’s right, folks. LOVE. “With whom?” you might ask. With Lucca. Yeah. . . it’s a town. Not a human. But that’s okay. Anyway, I’ll talk about that later. But first I’ll talk about Pisa.

My roommates, Kate, Meghan, and Hannah, and I, plus the other girls from Truman, Brittni and Lindsey, took our very first trip out of Florence today. We got up early(ish) in the morning and walked to the train station. It was sort of chaotic and crowded and we weren’t exactly sure what to do at first, but we saw some ticket-printing machines with screens and they were pretty self-explanatory once we got the language to English. We printed our tickets, figured out how to validate them, finally found the right platform to go to, and climbed aboard the train. IT WAS MY FIRST EVER TRAIN RIDE. It left exactly at 8:52 and took about an hour (maybe more) to get there.

My first train ticket

Once we got off the train in Pisa, we had a “guided walk” from the train station to the Field of Miracles thanks to Rick Steves. (What would I do here without him? Seriously. Best guide books ever. Buy them if you ever travel in Europe.) The town of Pisa is small, only about 100,000 people. The walk through the town was fun. We saw several statues, some paintings on walls, Pisa’s best gelato place (Of course we stopped for a nutritious, delicious brunch there!), some small markets, lots of clothing stores (We shopped a few of them but didn’t buy anything), a bridge across the Arno (same river that runs through Florence), and even street-side venders. I couldn’t resist. I bought a scarf. Okay. No more. I’ve reached my limit on scarves.

The town was really nice, overall. The only part that feels touristy is the Field of Miracles: home to a cathedral, baptistery, museum, cemetery, and the famous Leaning Tower. We didn’t climb the tower because it costs 15 euros and none of us wanted to pay that much. But we did stop to take some stereotypical Pisan Tourist Holding Up The Tower pictures. (Duh. Who could resist?)

Then we spent a while frolicking in the grass and walking around taking pictures of the sights on the field. We caught a bus to Lucca from Pisa when we were done looking around. We knew we were supposed to buy bus tickets for 3 euros once we got on the bus, because my guide book said so. But the driver told us to get them when we got to Lucca. When we got to Lucca (after a very pretty ride through the countryside), we asked where to pay. He told us to pay inside, and he drove off.

. . . inside? We didn’t really see an “inside.” Eventually we realized the thing we thought was a bank was a ticket office. We went in and paid for our trip to Lucca, but the lady told us to show our tickets to the driver. He was long gone by then. Haha. Weird. We probably could have gotten a free ride. . .

By then it was almost 1:45. The pizza place we wanted to go to was only open until 2:30 so we had to hurry to find it! I had the map so I led the way . . . in the opposite direction of where we were supposed to go. Oops. Luckily, we still made it there by 2:15 thanks to Meghan taking over the map. The people there were really nice. They stayed open for us to eat. The food was great. They make wood-fired pizzas and the atmosphere was really cozy and comfortable. We were all starving by then, so my entire pizza disappeared pretty fast.



Before



After



After our lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon strolling around town. We went to a few shops. We went to a 130 year old bakery to buy some buccellato. This Lucca specialty is a lightly sweetened bread with raisins, and flavored with anise. It is usually shaped like a wreath. According to my book, an old proverb says, “Coming to Lucca without eating the buccellato is like not having come at all.” It was very good, not really like anything I’ve tasted before. Sort of like licorice bread? But better than that sounds. We actually went back to the bakery for round two an hour or so later. Ha.

130 year old bakery

The thing I love about Lucca is that it’s so charming. It’s quiet. Most of the restaurants and shops close in the afternoon for a “nap time” before opening again. The town is surrounded by a wall that seems to keep out most of the traffic. There were very few vehicles around. Definitely way different from Florence, where it’s hard to sleep at night because of all the noises. You can walk or bike around the wall, and it just seems that people there are very friendly and more relaxed than in the city. I do love Florence, but I guess I like the charming small-town Italy just as much. It was a wonderful break from all the busyness.

Fun fact: Lucca is Europe’s leading producer of toilet paper and
Kleenex and has a monopoly on the special machinery that makes it.

Back to the cute-ness of Lucca: If I could live anywhere in the world (not that I’ve actually been to that many places yet. . .) I would live in Lucca. There aren’t any particular tourist attractions here, besides lots of pretty, old churches and a big brick wall, but if you’re ever in Italy and you go to Pisa, do not leave without at least one afternoon in Lucca.



I love Lucca!



One more thing. I linked my blog to my Facebook photos, so if you want to see almost all of my pictures, just click on either “Florence Photos” or “Pisa and Lucca” on the right side of the page.