Our initial plan for the last day of sightseeing was to drive all the way to Siena. We'd heard some amazing stories about how beautiful the city was and it is known for being a big foodie town. I had plans for Siena, I had restaurant names and everything! However our buddies from the restaurant that had visited Siena before suggested we consider substituting Lucca, a much closer town. Why not?! We said.
Side note: unfortunately by this point we'd run out of the bottle of airborne and Steven had finally caught my cold. Damn...so close.
The beauty of Lucca is it was 15 mins from Pisa! Two towns for the price of one! After breakfast, we drove our little Panda down to the coastal town of Pisa and before we knew it we were out of the mountains and into the flatlands. The air became more stagnant and stuffy. It got hot.
To make things worse, Pisa was batshit crazy. I was so tense trying to find a parking spot that I just took the first lot I could find. It wasn't cheap but it was worth getting out of the damn road. My first impression of Pisa was "holy crap there's a lot of people. And garbage...and cheap tower knockoffs". Once we finally broke through the wall and came into the city we were immediately greeted by the Basilica and the tower.
The infamous, poorly constructed tower. In front of, to the side of and generally in the way were all the tourists trying to hold the blasted thing up (no, we did not do that)! That's when we started noticing something a little more strange. Yes there were a lot of people in the way but...they were all asian. I'm talking 98% of them. It's as if China took a vacation and went to Pisa by the bus load!
We did our best to find the road less traveled and ended up in a somewhat crappy botanical garden. I think they should seriously consider firing their gardeners. The majority of the garden beds were barren except for grass or moss but the trees were magnificent.
There was a magnolia that was being held together with leather and wire that was over 200 years old. I would have gotten a picture of it but it was in an area that was swarming with mosquitos and I was being eaten alive.
There were also a couple interesting structures in the garden.
The facade of this building was decorated with tiny pebbles.
Then there's this thing. I don't know what it's for but it was one of the more interesting things in the garden. Guess that sorta speaks poorly for the garden...
After giving the garden the benefit of the doubt we got the hell out of Pisa (I think we were there for a grand total of 40 minutes). It was just as nerve wracking getting out of Pisa as it was getting in.
Once we got out of the city and onto the road to Lucca we immediately felt better. It helped that the winding mountain road was a bunch of fun!
Lucca was awesome! It was the perfect combination of old world Italian town and new modernization. It wasn't difficult to find parking right at the wall and the city is very walkable. Unfortunately we didn't have a map and couldn't find one for the longest time. We ended up wandering around aimlessly until we finally found a shop with a map rack.
That's when I heard one of the strongest southern twangs of my life. Without skipping a beat I approached the lady because of course she's american and looky there, she was holding a map that I would very much like. Me: "Excuse me, ma'am, can you tell me where you found that map? We don't have one and could really use one just like that" Her: "Oooooh Sweeettiiieee, I go this map from my ho-tel" (wow southern twang). Just then Steven appears next to me and he just happens to be wearing his NC State polo. "Oh my! You went to NC State?! Honey, honey come here, this young man went to NC State! Where are ya'll from?!" "Uh, Raleigh...North Carolina" By then her whole family, husband, daughter, son and daughter in law were gathering to meet Steven and I. The conversation went from NC State to what we do for a living and when I said I worked for SEPI Engineering I got, "Oh my! You work for Sepi?!" "Yes, yes I do. Do you know her?" "Do I know her? I'm on the *insert organization that I'm forgetting* board with her!" I kid you not I ran into a lady in Lucca, Italy that knows my boss's, boss's, boss.
Small. World.
Unfortunately, even after all that they couldn't help us find a good map but they did direct us towards the best gelato place in town! It actually ended up being the best gelato I've ever had in Italy.
Now I want gelato...
The thing to do in Lucca is tour the old buildings and climb the towers. The one that everyone climbs is topped with trees!
But before you get to the trees you have to ascend these rusty metal stairs! I picked a bad day to swear a skirt for one thing. Secondly, if you ever want to test your fear of falling to your death in a big brick tower, walk up bouncy metal stairs with Steven behind you trying his best to make you wee yourself.
You can't beat the views from the towers though.
I wasn't all that scared...I swear!
There were actually two towers you can climb in Lucca. Everyone knows about the one with the tree on top but hardly anyone goes to the second.
In my haste to find out things to do in Lucca I did at least find that so we ascended two towers that day. I thought I had it bad in the first tower...the second tower's stairs were built out of wood with intermittent metal supports....
I took very few pictures up this tower because I legitimately feared for my life. Made worse by the fact that even Steven was spooked. Every few rows of stairs there would be one support that was dangerously loose. By the time we got to the top the last support had completely given way and the last three stairs were barely holding on. That was terrifying but the solid brick platform at the top felt sturdy beneath my feet and I quickly calmed again.
View of the first tower we climbed from the second one!
Towers all over Lucca
After braving the falling wooden stairs again to get back down we wandered down the quiet streets of Lucca in search of some lunch.
We somehow found the most delicious pizza we've ever had in Italy. It was spicy and cheesy and greasy and I loved ever morsel of it! It was a little hole in the wall pizza kitchen on Via Fillungo that I can't seem to locate on the map. We ate lunch on the steps of the church San Cristoforo with the rest of the patrons who were mostly locals!
Like with most Italian cities, churches were everywhere. We wandered into this one.
I'm so glad we did because, wow. I found the stone arch work and the wood rafters more stunning than most of the duomos I'd been in!
Lucca is known to have an epic market and we enjoyed wandering around it. However I never found anything I wanted to spend too much money on and it was starting to get towards evening so we set off for Montecatini-Terme with no keepsakes of Lucca.
Before we left we had to climb up on the wall. The neat thing about Lucca, or rather, one of the neat things, is that it is one of the last cities in Italy that has kept its ancient city wall! Most of the cities of Italy have bits and pieces of their wall left but hardly any are intact like Luccas! It wrapped all the way around the city and is used as a greenway!
The only way in was through access gates like these. So cool.
If you read the last blog post about Montecatini-Alto you'll remember that we promised we'd go back up the mountain for dinner the next night to eat the Bistecca Florentina. This time I remembered to bring along my camera so I could remember the uniqueness of Montecatini-Alto.
First of all, here's our mode of transportation, the Funicolare! This bad boy traveled up the side of the mountain at some pretty steep angles and was operated by a single cable and some massive gears. It was so much fun to ride.
Don't ask my why but Steven and I had gotten a song stuck in our heads to the beat of "If you like Pina Coladas". It went something like this, "If you like Funicolare's and getting stuck in the hills" we had a couple more verses but that's the only part I remember (and it's still stuck in my head). By the way getting stuck on the mountain was a real possibility. The last ride down was at 10 pm and if you weren't on it, you were walking down the mountain.
We rode up the front of the funicolare this time so I could get a picture of the gears as we were winched up the mountain! This totally tickled me.
Montecatini-Alto was as I had described before, so cute and quaint. The majority of the restaurants were all in one piazza and they all had outdoor seating. They had big lights strung up between the buildings that gave the night a romantic gleam. It's was the stuff of fairy tales. .
(side note, can you play, Spot the Steven in the picture?! Hint: he's sitting at a restaurant on the left.)
We dined for the second night at La Torre and this time were greeted as old friends. Our server was rather pleased to hear us place an order for the Bistecca Florentina (it was ridiculously expensive), a small appetizer and a glass of wine and mug of beer. I've never been so excited for a piece of meat.
If ever there was a time when taking a picture of your food was appropriate, it would have been that night. But alas...I could not bring myself to be that kind of tourist. When the steak came out of the kitchen my initial reaction was a mixture of intrigue, hunger and a bit of fear.
This was a big steak. The bone, muscle and fat together were the size of a typical dinner plate...it was 3.5 inches thick. The server gracefully cut three large pieces of meat off the bone, left us a bowl of white beans in olive oil and entreated us to conquer the beast. I have never tasted meat so perfect in my life. It was juicy (they cook it rare), it was flavorful (they only seasoned it with salt and pepper), it was the most tender meat I've ever had. It disappeared rather quickly and I didn't feel like I had just eaten my weight in steak. I pine for this steak. I miss it. Here's the kicker though.,,you can't buy it here. The breed of cow that produces this incredible meat, the Chianina, is only raised in Italy. It's a magnificent old, large breed that produces large, delicious steaks. If anyone figures out how to get the meat in the states. You let me know. You let me know right now.
After dinner to kill the time before last ride on the funicolare, we wandered around Montecatini Alto and found the ancient fort.
And a beautiful perspective to take a night's sky picture. The lights below are Montecatini-Terme.
This time on the way back we rode in the front. I wanted to get a picture that really grasped this epic mode of travel.
"Please keep your hands and feet inside the railing at all times" haha no kidding.
That evening was a fantastic conclusion to our adventures in Tuscany. We came, we saw, we ate, we conquered.
The next day we'd be packing up the panda and finding our way back to Milan to fly back to the states. Which meant it was now time to write down more terrible directions.
Thanks for reading!
Liz
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