Visit Lucca if you ever get the chance

So, remember in the last post when I said that I was going to lay low this weekend because of midterms? Well, I lied. All this traveling that I've been doing makes me realize how much there is out there that I want to see and I would have just felt antsy staying in town all weekend. Plus, honestly how much studying for midterms was I really going to do on gorgeous Saturday?

My friend Ellen & I met at the train station at 8:30 Saturday morning to take the train to Lucca. She had been there before on a class trip and had ranted and raved about the city.

A little background-Lucca is a small city about an hour and a half train ride from Florence. It is famous because it is a fortress city and its Renaissance-era city walls are still intact! Since the walls no longer have military importance they are used today as a pedestrian/biking path overlooking the city. Perfect for some bike rentals! More on that later.

I was a little weary on the train ride because it rained pretty much the whole way. However, like in the movies, as soon as the train stopped at the Lucca train station the skies totally cleared! Encountering the city walls upon exiting the train station is the coolest thing. A great green park surrounds these huge city walls and if I didn't know what to expect I would have no idea that a small (but bustling) city is inside.

Outside the city walls.

Ellen entering the city walls.

We spent awhile just wandering around the streets. So much wide open spaces and oh so much foliage! Autumn and leaves changing has definitely been something that I have really been missing here in Florence. Since Ellen had previously been here with class she was gracious enough to take me around and show me some of the many cool churches and historical buildings of Renaissance art. I thought this church (shown below) was really cool. What you see is the back of the facade of the church complete with some scary looking stairs leading up to the top.


For the billionth time since I've been abroad I happened upon a random fair. Things like that (with different food stands, homemade jewerly and goods, people-watching, etc.) just make me really happy. So we wandered around that for awhile. I was finally able to try a seasonal treat that I've heard a lot about. Schiaccia con uva is a foccacia like bread with sugar and fresh-picked grapes (complete with seeds) baked on top. It was so delicious!

After a little bit of window shopping it was lunch-time. I know I said before that I had given up on Rick Steves (see Geneva post) but he was our only guide to the city so we followed his advice and ended up at a cute little pizza place. The pizza was great, but when I looked around the restaurant I realized that we were surrounded by a bunch of obviously American couples in their forties with a copy of "Rick Steves Florence & Tuscany 2010" out on the table. Oy vey! So much for the "real Italian" experience.

We had heard that bike rentals were the best way to experience the fortress walls and the city, and since we had so much fun riding bikes along Lake Geneva we decided to give it a whirl here. So much fun! And the walls were so neat! I was expecting a three foot wide path with a chain-linked fence around it. Wrong. The paths were nice and wide with gradual hills going down to the city. We biked around the top a couple times and saw such gorgeous views of Tuscan foliage.

The paths along the city walls.

This was such a great little day trip. As much as I really came here to venture to other countries its really nice to stop and appreciate all the great things that Italy itself has to offer! Ok, that's enough procrastination for now. Guess I'll get started on that studying....