Italy part 2: more Tuscany

Easter Sunday we pick up a rental car, a cute black Fiat Punto, and head west, to Lucca.

Lucca is surrounded by Renaissance city walls that are perfectly in tact and even have trees growing on top--you can jog or walk all the way around.

Here is T at the tourist office just outside the city walls.

And K having swooned over the soft grass.

And at the entrance to the city

In Lucca we find a jaw dropping cathedral.

Outside there are gingerbread carved pillars, each different, carved by local artisans. Inside, 12 X 16 foot paintings, including one by Tintoretto and several Civitalis. A vaulted, painted ceiling, around 70 feet up. Some Escher-esque marble floor designs. Rich, deep colored stained glass. Crystal chandeliers.

Around town, a woman in tailored clothes, heels and black stockings on a bicycle. I love Italy!
Here is the large, oval city "square", formerly home to a Roman arena.

On to Bagna di Lucca, where we spend the night in an old hotel. Our room has a framed note letting us know that Toscanini slept there in 1950. (The mattress has no doubt changed, but not much else.)

There is little open at 5 pm on Easter in this village. We see the Pecos Bill Trattoria and we enjoy a beer by the river.

At dinner Tom is amazed that the house wine (cheap!) is Chianti. I order a salad that comes with slabs of Pecorino and some other softer cheese--oooooooooooh. Good thing we will hike tomorrow and walked 100 miles in Florence and Lucca.

The next day, we hike in the Garfagnana reserve, near the Apauane Alps. The area is famous for truffles.

We stop at another walled ancient town, Barga. Here is an Easter display in one of the church's chapels.

In the evening we step into L’Osteria della Piazetta in Bagna di Lucca, for one of the most memorable meals either of us has ever experienced. It is a new place, and the owner tries (and succeeds) to make everything perfect, relying on locally grown and traditional specialties, with style. The lighting is bright, but the food elegant. I have trout ravioli, and thin sliced raw marinated fish with fat green peppercorns. Tom has meat that has been marinated for 15 days.

After, we walk along the river. A sign there commemorates the spot where Elizabeth Barret wrote poetry to her husband Robert Browning in 1849 (Sonietti dal Portoguese XIV: 13 -14, to be precise).

Here is a curious medieval bridge at Borgo a Mazzano, not far from Lucca. It has five arches and an off center midpoint.

We drive under the Tuscan sun of note. Lush, rolling hills. Signs warn of deer, snow and children that would lay ahead. Gentle and not so gentle climbs and falls, the small diesel car with manual transmission perfect for the roads.

It’s one walled medieval city after another, with tall cathedrals stuffed with art.

A pair of pheasant cross the road in front of us.

We stop at another walled city, Volterra. Here is Tom. And the painted ceiling of the church there.

Siena. Rival of Florence, entered by one of eight city gates. A duomo (cathedral) even more astonishing on the inside than the out. Here are photos of the Duomo exterior, interior, a section of floor mosaic, and the ceiling.

These are of the ceiling in a library inside the Duomo. Marvelous 3D effects.

We spend the night at another walled, hilltop town: Certaldo Alto. More fabulous food! T has steak with anchovy sauce. I order gnocchi with radiccio and gorgonzola, and smoked swordfish with pink peppercorns. FOOD AS ART. Italy so knows how to eat. The wine is excellent and cheap--no markup in restaurants like we have in the US and in Lebanon. And T is so impressed with coffee prices--90 cents, unlike the 2 and 3 Euros we saw in Greece at Christmas. T says it shows respect .

Here are views in and around Certaldo Alto.

Umbria next!