On to Italy

We left St Remy to drive into Italy, having been told about the craziness of that particular motorway as it enters Italy. The E80, along the south coast of France was very nice and smooth. We sailed along with Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo viewed from above and then we hit the tunnels!

This is what it looked like from our view in the car. Our destination was Lucca, which is  just a little north of Florence. I swear we must have spent at least half of the journey underground. The challenge was going from bright sunlight into a tunnel. There were tunnel lights, but that moment of temporary blindness is disconcerting. At one tunnel exit, we found there was a lane restriction just as we emerged into the sunlight. We had to brake hard, try to move into the open lane with a large car transporter not paying any attention to our situation. Luckily we made it OK, no scrapes or bangs, just an adrenalin high.

Next we found ourselves traveling along with a whole string of Ferrari's, which was fun. I am not sure what the collective term for a bunch of Ferrari's is, but "flock" seems a bit tame, maybe it's a "frenzy" or a "fury", or maybe even a "flash". I think I like "A Frenzy of Ferrari's" best of all.

Our apartment was about half a mile outside the walls of the city of Lucca. It was situated in a large old building that seemed to have several multi-storied houses all connected together. We learned that our hostess's grandmother lived in the apartment below us, was aged 92 and still lived on her own. The house next door was occupied by a 94 year old woman who was born there, and has lived in that house all of her life. We don't get to witness that much anymore!

The view from our living room window was this large garden, and every day the owner, who looked to be in his eighties, was out there either weeding or harvesting. We noticed many such gardens in the neighborhood.

Lucca is a walled city where the walls are very wide and planted with trees. The walls can be walked or biked, with a circumference of over 4km. Unfortunately, we only had one day in Lucca and decided not to spend the time on the walls as it was quite hot, (now we do have to return).

This might give a bit of an idea of just how big these walls are.

It is an old city with wonderful narrow streets opening into piazza's. Not too many tourists during our brief visit, as I think it was fairly early in the season, though we did encounter a couple of tour groups.

This is the cathedral, Duomo di San Martino. Quite a magnificent structure and hard to photograph.

Puccini's home was Lucca, so there were a number of statues of him, as well as a tour of his house, if you were so inclined. We opted for ice cream.

This was an interesting and quite busy "square" in that it was contained in a large circle of buildings.

A great place to have lunch across the square from the Ducal Palace.

Not as grand as I thought it might be!

There are always groups of folks putting the world to rights.  Love it!

 This is the best sign I have seen in a long time, I think this concept should be adopted everywhere!
 Our stay in Lucca was very short, there is a lot more to see, as well as other nearby cities such as Pisa.  Definitely on our "return to" list.

Next stop, Guardia Sanfromondi.