It is Monday morning and I have farewelled Chris!
So where was I? It’s been a while since I emailed so its back to Friday I think. Another last day of school, more goodbyes to another class. Then I needed to move my focus to Chris’ arrival. She was supposed to get here around 1ish. She rang around 2 to say she was trying to make her way around Siena. She hadn’t taken the Autostrada so was getting really boxed up around the towns. An hour later I went and sat up on the wall with my bike so I could get to wherever she entered the city quickly…and I waited and waited and waited. Eventually she arrived at around 6pm!! She had been sitting in the car for about 8 hours!! We eventually got home but had only a short respite because we had a booking at Locanda Antica di Sesto outside the city. Chris knows the owner and chef, Aurelio. We set off to get there and of course got totally lost again, driving around the hills trying to find Sesto (oh for the GPS and Ham at the wheel!!). Anyway we eventually got there and had a marvellous meal with full attention of Aurelio and the staff. It was fantastic and so heavily discounted that it cost a mere pittance!! We were home late and talked until even later.
Saturday was hot and muggy. We walked around the town, exploring little churches, gardens and streets. Then we went and picked up the car and drove to a little village just on the other side of the river, to a restaurant that I’d heard about through school, called Tambellini. It was just gorgeous. We sat outside under trees and had a lovely (but light) lunch. Very nice indeed. We then set of to go to Puccini’s country villa ’Torre di lago’. Again we got lost and inadvertently explored more of the Tuscan countryside in our efforts to find the Villa. We eventually did find it however. They open it every 40 minutes to let visitors in and we just missed an entrance by 5 minutes. We had a coffee, wandered a bit and eventually got ourselves into the Villa which was lovely. But it was so humid and muggy!! We then returned to Lucca and after a bit of a break went to All’Olivo for dinner…lovely, lovely meal. After dinner we went up to Piazza Antiteatro where there was a Jazz festival happening. We listened to a band for a while and came home.
Sunday we had our coffee and hired a bike for Chris. We cycled around the wall and had intended to go up to the river and ride along to the lovely restaurant I went to last time we rode along the river. However as we rode the wall it started to rain, then it started to bucket down!! So we took Chris’ bike back and went to the Duomo for a look around. We then picked up the car (great having the car) and drove to the restaurant for lunch. It is a lovely family run restaurant, just simple, basic and yummy food. The rain had stopped so we drove around the hills of Lucca for a while through vineyard and Olive tree country, it was lovely. Back for our afternoon break and then out to dinner at Restaurant Giglio for another superb meal (I had the most tender shoulder of pork ever!!).
So now its all over, we had coffee this morning, walked to the car and she is now heading back to Roma (on the autostrada!!!)…a really lovely weekend. She is a great friend to me here in Italy.
For the rest of the day I’ll fit in a laundromat. Stock up with food again and maybe do a bit of house cleaning. It always feels so lonely when company leaves so my next focus is my sojourn in London next week….cant wait!!
This is a long one…sorry.