That Green Grass: We're moving onto Lucca!

After the chaos of Rome and the heat and French tourists of Cinque Terre, it was great to move inward to our first Tuscan destination, Lucca. Lucca proved just the place we needed to still our minds and relax behind its circular renaissance walls and old world charm. We spent two nights in Lucca in a B 'n B occupying a floor of a Tuscan villa. We used Lucca as a base to visit Pisa for a few hours before returning and cramming all of Lucca's own sites in, for the remaining time.

Before our trip we debated about the preferred mode of transport.. hire a car and drive on the wrong side of the road or take the train. Whilst a car ensures more opportunities to venture off the beaten track, the train provided us with a more economical mode of transport, opportunities to relax and the reassurance that provided we got on the right one, we would end up at our desired location. All in all we had a good experience with the trains and they weren't as delayed as we were led to believe.

For the cia.

Italians love their dogs (yay!). We used to pass this Husky on the way back to our bed and breakfast.

Italian Biggles!!

We were utterly amazed by the way the Europeans travel with their babies. It gave us a new perspective on family life and work life balance. The above picture embodied European childhood summers and fairy tales that never seemed to end.

And so I guess we never learn.. Sigh. Yes we climbed up that too. A tree growing on top of a tower in Lucca. At least I could justify the gelato that inevitably followed.

Top of the tree tower!

Some Lucca 360 degree views.

Pisa

On the same day as climbing a tree tower, we had prebooked a tour of the leaning tower of Pisa (Torre Pendante) which we almost didn't make. A frantic willful train ride from Lucca and 2 abandoned buses later, we hopped into an Italian cab (the sole taxi ride of our trip) and made our scheduled time for the tower by the skin of our teeth. It was well worth the years off our lives and sweat from our foreheads. Take a look!

View from the top.

Doing the classic 'lean'. Ahh hahahahahahahhahaahahahah! Silly tourist! Trust me this is not as easy as it looks.

Doing the 'group' lean. As you can see, the boys have left me to hold up Pisa on my own. Men! All the same!

I would like to think (and say) that this picture was taken whilst we were trying to keep our Pisa appointment and the enthusiasm to climb up 500 steps was so overwhelming that I just couldn't wait, but I think honestly I had just seen an ice-cream truck and needed to gesticulate wildly to make sure we were going in the right direction.

Back in Lucca we ummed and ahhed about over exerting ourselves to rent bikes and doing the classic cycling loop atop the city balls. Finally my sense of Carpe Dium took over the feeling of my aching legs and I'm glad we got to pretend to be locals and sail around the city on our two wheelers.