Which is exactly what he knew I wouldn't be doing, since I was spending my weekend doing the personal tourguide thing for my friends Trixy & Allan.
I called Giorgio and told him I was ready to go and he met me at the boat launch for the hotel shortly thereafter. We were taking the hotel's boat (a small liberty since he is the hotel's Bar & Restaurant Manager of Operations) to Piazzale Roma to pick up his car and head to the west coast. It still seems funny to think of driving from the east coast of a country to its west coast in a matter of hours. It's a little over 300 km and would take us about 3.5 hours.
I had never seen his car before - it's a sweet little Alfa Romeo 4 seater. And he drives like a maniac. We made it it in under 3 hours. I had been in contact by phone with Trixy along the way so we would have a better idea about meeting times. They were docked in Livorno and were taking the train to Pisa, where we would meet up and move on to Lucca. Pisa is a transfer point on the train so it was a good place to meet. We would be back in Pisa for the afternoon to see the Tower and the Cathedral before I got them back to the boat.
Giorgio dropped me at the train station in Pisa and I went in to meet up with the Buldas. Happy reunion time! Trixy and I worked together at my last job and I have missed her dearly. We were very close and I miss our mornings together. Almost daily, she and I had the office to ourselves for at least two hours and over the course of our two and a half years working together we discussed a lot of things in our morning jam sessions. I also saw her husband Allan almost daily since he worked downstairs in the E/R and he frequently stopped into our office to see his lovely wife.
The first thing she said to me after the hugging and kissing was how HAPPY I look. Granted, she saw me at my best and my worst in the office, and she saw how I glowed after returning from a trip to Italy on various vacations, but she said over and over to me how happy I look, how relaxed and how this all suits me. She had only seen me for about 15 minutes and she said it about 12 times. "It suits you Kris. This is it for you." We'll see...
I got them on the train to Lucca for our 22 minute ride. They told me all about their adventures in Barcelona, where the cruise started, and the day before spent in Monaco. They told me the first thing they wanted was gelato. They had been holding out - had seen it in Barcelona and Monaco but were waiting for "the real thing" in Italy, its mother-country. I can help facilitate this. No problemo!
Lucca has the distinction of being the only fully-intact walled city in Italy still untouched. The walls have been there for over two thousand years, the latest addition in the wall (added thickness to the already impervious structure) is over 500 years old. They built this wall for wars that never came. The city has never been bombed, even in WWII. The heyday of Lucchese power was in the 1200s and it is now just a sleepy little town perfect for wandering around in.
The top of the rampart is about twenty feet wide, tree-lined and a perfect place to ride bikes on; it's about 2.5 miles in circumference. This was the first order of the day. We made our way in through Porta San Donato, one of ten battlement sections in the wall and made a short walk to a bike rental shop. I rented two bikes for them and sent them off to make a couple of passes around the perimeter and look over the town. I settled onto a park bench under a tree with my Kindle and started to read when it promptly started sprinkling. I had an umbrella, and by sitting Indian-style like a five year old at storytime, I was perfectly covered for the oncoming wet.
(Smiling in the rain - the uber-cute Mr & Mrs Bulda)Trixy & Allan came back with umbrellas they had bought from a vendor on the opposite side of town but they were still a little wet. No worry, we are hearty people. It wasn't storming, just a heavy sprinkle. After returning the bikes we made our way a few blocks to San Martino church, the cathedral of Lucca, with its Pisan Romanesque structure reminiscent of a lacy wedding cake. Inside I explained the various architectural styles and the ceiling of blue and gold frescoes and presented them with the Volto Santo - the pride of Lucca.
The Volto Santo is a carved crucifix statue that supposedly was carved by Nicodemus in Jerusalem shortly after the death of Jesus. Since Nicodemus was one of the people who prepared Jesus for burial after taking him down from the cross, Nicodemus was rendering the "true face" of Christ in the carving, hence Volto Santo - the Holy Face. I'm not knocking peoples' faith in religious icons, but ... okay. The story of the Volto gets more interesting from there, so I reserve all judgments... mostly.
Nicodemus then sent the carving adrift in an unmanned boat and it floated around for a while, landing on the coast of Tuscany. It gets better. It was miraculously carried to Lucca in 782 in an oxcart (with untamed bulls no less) and has been here ever since.
Ahem. Okay. It's interesting that it is carved in 12th century Byzantine stylings. That Nicodemus was really ahead of his time, by over a thousand years, apparently. That's all I'm saying... As far as religious relics go, I'll take this carved statue over jawbones or pelvises of saints anytime.
The city takes great pride in the Volto, and they have a festival every September 13/14 for it. They dress up the statue with beautiful draped fabrics and a golden crown and parade it around town in a candle-lit evening processional.
We walked and talked, hitting the highlights of town - the amphitheater that is no longer there (Lucca was originally a Roman town - they built the first wall) and the towers of the city, built by wealthy families in a keeping up with the Joneses rivalry which so many medieval towns participated in, and then we hit Trattoria da Leo for some lunch.
(The quintessential classic car of Italy - the Fiat 500 - cinquecento. Teeny tiny!)They entrusted me with ordering and we proceeded to share a tableful of dishes: risotto with saffron and artichokes, grilled chicken, pork ribs, tagliatelle with mushrooms and roasted vegetables. Oh yes, and oh yum! So simple and so good. Trixy and Allan both said they were now ruined for any food on the cruise ship, which until then had been really good meals onboard. Yep - good food.
Walking back to catch the train, we stopped for gelato. Tiramisu flavored. Fabulous.
We hopped on board bound for Pisa and arrived shortly thereafter (Allan got a short nap in) to find the tourists were all still there. I had mistakenly thought that everyone from the cruiseship scene would be there primarily in the morning and disperse for other parts of town, hoping that there would be no problem in getting in straightaway to the Tower. Wrong.
(The day is only half over and Allan is already sacking out on the train)We got there at 3:30 and I bought them tickets with the soonest entry time - of 5:00. It couldn't be helped. This changed the plan for getting them back to the boat. They needed to be there by 6:30 for a 7PM sailing, and catching a train now became iffy, timewise. I walked to a taxi stand nearby and asked about the time to drive to the terminal in Livorno, about 20 miles away, along with the cost, just so I could brace myself. Not nearly as costly as a cab here in the US, but way more than the 4Euro to take the train.
We spent the time waiting for their entrance time to the Tower by going to the Cathedral and the Baptistery, both beautiful buildings. The majority of the time we were cracking ourselves up watching every other person on the Field of Miracles (the name of the complex of buildings) taking those photos of each other trying to "hold the Leaning Tower up." You know what I'm talking about - the pictures where your loved one stands and by fooling with the perspective you are holding the Tower up or trying to push it back upright. EVERYONE takes these pictures (I've taken them of my hub-unit doing it too; I'm not immune to the kitschy photo op!) Funny thing is, we were photographing lines of people standing there with their arms outstretched in pantomime. Every five feet, someone with their arms out, looking like they are using all their strength to p-u-s-h that old tower back into place. Trixy took a picture of me pushing a leaning Allan back into place.
(Don't know what all the fuss it, the Tower looks perfectly straight to me...)The things we do to amuse ourselves.
I sat at a cafe fortifying myself with a coffee while they made the climb in the Tower. I saw the waving at the top a short time later and walked across to the taxi stand again to engage a cab for the ride to Livorno. It was "Amazing Race" time. Will we make it in time? Considering we would likely be hitting some kind of afternoon commute traffic, it could get interesting. They arrived presently and we hopped in the cab. Massimo the driver had his directions and he was up for the challenge. Here we go! We zigged and zagged, passed slow drivers on straightaways on the road he selected, which ran parallel to the highway. "Much faster, Madame, trust me." We're in your hands Massimo! We dropped the Buldas at the ship at 6:20. Yay. I kissed them goodbye and told them I would see them in Rome at Termini station (at the McDonalds) at 10am the next morning.
Massimo then took me into the center of town to the train station. After grasping the gameplan we have (me traveling overland to meet them while they sailed through the night) he told me they were lucky to have a friend who would go to these lengths to show the around. What a good friend. Where's my halo, dammit?
I got onto the train, made my connection in Florence as easily as expected and got into Rome just before 9pm. Grabbed a bite to eat at the train station. Checked in to my Pensione near the Colosseum and slept like the dead.
Chilling on the Lucca park bench under my um-ber-ella ella ella ella eh eh eh. Under my umbrella. Ooch I hate that song.
Random photo from outside the train station in Pisa. Doesn't everyone's Grandma wear high-heeled gold lame sneakers???
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