We spent the day wandering around Lucca, a lovely walled city where bikes outnumber the cars. The wall around the city is serious, very wide, with heart-shaped baluardi sticking out - and has been turned into a car-free park. So you can stroll or ride your bike around the city.
The San Michele church is one of the amazing buildings in the town. I was fascinated by the pillars, all intricately decorated. The roof tops and doors throughout the town are fascinating also.
We had a delicious lunch at Locanda di Bacco. Tortelli lucchesi (meat filled ravioli in ragu), steamed spinach with olive oil e limone for me, insalata mista (huge garden salad) for Gary, mezzo litro di rosso (half liter of the house red), a slice of cioccolata torta (chocolate torte) and espresso.
We visited the Piazza Amfiteatro - circular piazza that used to be a Roman amphitheatre, and then people built houses on the ruins, still in an oval - checked out the bicycle rentals for this coming week, and spent some time window shopping. Most stores are closed after lunch, 1 to 4ish, but a few are open. We found a cool leather and bookbinding shop, where the workshop is in the shop and they make everything there. I purchased a small leather bound journal and a great bag of very soft chocolate brown leather (in contrast to the many purple leather purses we saw earlier in the day - apparently purple/lilac is THE color this season). We also spent some time walking around the wall. Walking back to our car parked outside the wall, we discovered the Italian equivalent of REI - lots of camping gear.
Spent some time food shopping today, as everything will be closed tomorrow (except for the Esselungo, the supermarket). Went to a great little shop with fresh fruits and vegetables, breads, cheeses and meats, and some dry goods, and purchased some of each. A very friendly older woman customer there spoke perfect English, struck up a conversation with us, and helped us with some of the more difficult transactions (getting across how much prosciutto we actually wanted - having to speak a foreign language is one thing, having to think in the metric system is another!). All the staff there were very friendly, in stark contrast to the disinterested (bordering on surly) check out staff I encountered at the Esselungo yesterday.
We also stopped at Pinzo's in Ponte a Mariano (at the base of the hill we are on) - a restaurant that also has prepared food for takeout - and got roasted chicken a limone, lasagne, and stuffed fried zucchini blossoms. So that was dinner (with leftovers for tomorrow), along with a great salad. The greens here are phenomenal, and the olive oil in the house is from olives grown on the property.
On the drive back up the goat path to the house we found that there will be a bike race going through here tomorrow - Granfondo Michele Bartoli (Michele Bartoli is a famous cyclist who's hometown is near here). So we are going to walk a bit down the hill and watch that in the morning, and then the plan is to have a chill-out day here at the house tomorrow.
Buona notte! Ciao!
