Category: Lucca

I think 3 days have gone by and they can all be summed up with the same thing. A bit of a cycle, reading in my walled garden, pottering around the place, finding every reason in the book not to study my Italian (I have a masters in procrastination). Its warm and sunny interspersed by a quick sharp little storm. Humid is the word.

Today I head to London so am packing up and am very excited. I’m told to take a jumper and can’t wrap my head around that…I was more inclined to pack the bathers but no, not in dear old England.

Next missive should be more exciting. (not that I don’t love my quiet days in Lucca)

Saturday night’s meal was a great success. A really nice restaurant called Punto del Ufficio Gusto, fairly recently discovered after the recommendation of the teachers at school. Anyway it was very enjoyable.

This morning I got up to help Caroline to the station with her luggage. I saw her onto the train and did a bit of shopping on the way home. Then joy of joys, the weekly trip to the laundromat for my pleasure. Actually it does contain some pleasure as I go to a bar nearby and have coffee and read my book while the clothes are whirring around happily.

Then I came home. I’m in cleaning mode as I leave for London on Thursday and when I return to Lucca Norjie will be with me so my conscience decided I have to have the place looking schmick. I even mopped the floors…I know, I know it’s a bit too hard to believe but it is true!!!

That was my day and that was the weekend…gone in a proverbial blink. Now its back to Game of Thrones before bed.

Its back to last Thursday which was a lovely day. Caroline and I rode along the river, something I love doing. We rode to that restaurant I’ve been to a couple of times and really love, but alas it was closed!! But the disappointment turned into an opportunity when, after asking, we rode on a bit further to discover another really lovely restaurant with a garden to allow us to enjoy lunch under the trees. A delicious pasta and some wine later we were ready for the return ride back along the lovely river. Very enjoyable all in all. On arrival back in Lucca and returning caroline’s bike we enjoyed a Spritz and a conversation with some Australians at the next table. Then parted company.

Yesterday I did the basics, a bit of shopping, a bit of wandering, some reading and then decided I needed to pull myself together for a walk around the wall. This does me in every time so then it was home. I have bought series 5 of Game of Thrones but decided I needed to watch series 4 again as it’s been a year. So that is entertaining every night.

This morning after coffee and cornetto I met up with Caroline who wanted to ride around the wall. This was accomplished in very little time, we had a coffe up on the wall and then parted company again. I rode around the wall another couple of times, came off the wall to buy my bus ticket to Pisa Airport (yahoo) for next Thursday. I then came home and have been lazing around. I’m having a meal with Caroline tonight and she leaves Lucca in the morning. We’ve just had a short but very loud thunder storm…good thing I was at home. The sun is shining again now and I will cycle off to book a restaurant for tonight.

Tutto a domani

First a quick retrace to Tuesday to say that that night I went to a concert in Palazzo Bernardino which is just near me. It was really lovely in a room covered in beautiful frescoes. Any concert I’ve ever been to here has been in an amazing setting and this was no exception…. lovely. I went with Caroline and her Luchese friend Wanda, so that was a bit of a treat.

Yesterday I had a very quiet time. Found a place to do some printing for me, went exploring some more around town. I have a new guidebook I bought on Chris’ advice and it tells me about all these obscure churches and palazzos. I found a beautiful villa in the middle of town with a most lovely garden so spent some time there. you can’t get into the villa but wandering in the gardens is a major treat. I also bought another present for myself. This time the print of the city of Lucca I’ve had my eye on for a while. That’s it for me…no more spending. One or two more pays and then I’m income-less!!!

Today I am going on a bike ride with Caroline. Think I’ll take her up to the river for a bit of an explore.

Life certainly quietens down when I’m not going to school. The last couple of days have been most sedate. Yesterday I wandered about the town checking out a few things I wanted and going to a church of the lesser variety that nonetheless has some beautiful carvings. I have a problem (as always) with printing my tickets/ boarding passes so I went in search of somewhere to buy a USB so I can take stuff to a commercial place to print. Hows that for an exciting mission?? It rained on and off yesterday so that was my excuse not to do too much after I’d farewelled Chris.

Today I went and had my coffee etc, came home and did a bit of school revision and a tad of …OMG!!…ironing!! I got home to find I had left my kindle at the coffee shop so had to hot foot back to (fortunately) retrieve it. Then I went out to meet the friend of Angie Berry’s who’s in Lucca this week, Caroline. She remembers all you kids from picking grapes at the land. She remembers you all as fabulous kids!! We went to have a bowl of soup for lunch (and a glass of wine, I think I may have rather shocked her!!). She is a delight and it was lovely to have such pleasant company for lunch.

Then I wandered the town with her for a while going here and there, having a coffee, I show her my lovely walled garden and she showed me the best place to buy wine in town….excellent discovery for me. Then returning her to her B&B. I’m not sure how much we’ll see each other although she does want to go for a bike ride at some stage I think and will no doubt be in touch. While I was waiting to meet her before lunch I went a bit shopping mad (so unusual for me) and bought myself a leather handbag (bright red) and a leather computer case thing (bright red!!!). What can I say??? How much will I have to throw away to be able to accommodate them??

I think I’ll take a little trip to Prato one day but otherwise I’m going to enjoy a slow week and try to discipline myself to ensure I do a bit of Italian each day.

Ciao all….hi Tonga familyt!! I’m planning a visit to Fiji so standby!!

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.

More school. Definitely a nicer class this week and some nice interactions. After school yesterday I went and picked up my dress…it is great, all done, now an even hem and another dress i can wear more. After school there was an excursion around the wall to learn more about Lucca. Keeping in mind how hot it was walking the wall and keeping in mind that everything is in Italian and that I understand about 50% (better than weeks ago I guess), it was nonetheless really interesting and there were lovely people to chat to as we went around. We went to an amazing church Chiesa della Rosa, which is never open but the teacher knew it was open for a short time yesterday so we went there. It was quite magical, built into ancient Roman walls. Apparently there are a lot of these churches in Lucca that aren’t open to the public and that you have to find a time when there is a concert or something in them to get inside. There is another I have my eye on! Anyway after the walk (only half way around the wall) I took myself off and got myself a Spritz….I felt I deserved it!!

I then came home and cooled off with the air-con thing and watched more episodes of The Vikings!! Today the school excursion is to the beach at Viareggio but I’m not going to go. Not my sort of group excursion!!

It is morning and I’m heading off to school in a minute via cappuccino and cornetto!!

All being well Chris will be here tomorrow.

So where was I? My brain is overheated. Sunday was very quiet, I couldn’t really do much, I’m sweating every minute of every day. The humidity seems to make the heat feel so much worse.

Anyway, back to school yesterday for my last week, at least for a while. This week the class is much, much better. I’m so lucky to have kept Ele as my teacher, she is such a delight. There are no smart arsed Aussies in this class which is a relief. I have 2 “my age” American woman from the West coast who are having a little holiday together. There is still Alicia. Funny but I’m getting quite fond of her, my most unlikely partner in crime. We bonded over finding the Austn woman of last week overpowering!! There is an older Brazilian woman who doesn’t say much but I’m sure would be very interesting if I got to know her. And there is Gerhardt, an Austrian man who is in the middle of a ‘life change’ moving away from his own business into being a watercolour artist who teaches painting to groups on field trips and makes a living with his exhibitions. There are also some lovely people in other classes who team up with me for coffee and who are delightful. One is a lovely Australian woman from Kew. So…a good group all in all but I’m not spending time out of school with anyone as I was a few weeks ago.

Yesterday I plucked up my will-power and rode around the wall X3 (not 3.5 because I was losing my grip on the handles through the sweat!!!!).

Last night Lucca was treated to a sound and light show au naturale with thunder and lightning positively pounding away throughout the night. It was amazing with the whole sky lit up continuously. So, not much by way of sleep!! And as I write now the thunder seems to be starting up again.

I finally rang Cristina (landlady) yesterday and with her advice have now got the cooler chugging away. It’s a blessed relief but a really impractical unit. You have to stick a great pipe out the window which means the window has to be open which means “ZANZARE”…(mosquitoes). So I either swelter or I get bitten!! Cristina was supposed to bring around an ordinary fan for me which would be helpful but it hasn’t arrived yet!!

Today my other Christina rang and is on track to come up to Lucca on Friday…that will be a nice treat. After school I set off to find a dressmaker I’d heard about because I wanted the hem straightened on one of my few dresses. That was a coup….I found them and they will have it ready for tomorrow for a mere 5 Eu….hopefully it will be a successful operation. I then bumped into Gerhardt having a beer after he’d been out painting. So I joined him for a drink for half an hour then headed home.

Back to writing up todays lesson before dinner.

The last 2 days have been about surviving the sweaty, humid heat which somehow seems harder to bear than Australian heat. So exercise has been suspended and I’m spending much more time indoors which sends me a bit spare. The apartment has no cooling and if I open the windows I let the mozzies in!! I think I have to get myself a fan…or ask Cristina for one, not sure which!! I wander the streets a bit, do a bit of shopping, find a shady spot to read my book and do some more despairing about my hopeless Italian. That has been the last 2 days really. The Australian woman in my Italian class is a pain and there are no ‘mates’ to play with. Despite this I have decided to flagellate myself a little more and return to school for one more week. I think that woman is going up to a more advanced class which will be good but goodness knows who I’ll get if anyone. I’ve adapted myself to Alicia the American and Nocciollina (the dog) and no doubt we will remain in the same class cos we’re both hopeless!!

Mad Men has kept me company at night but I finished that and am moving on to the Vikings. Also finished my delicious book and always feel sad when I finish a book I’m loving.

Chris is coming up next weekend. It’ll be good to see her again.

For the rest of Republic Day I took it into my head to walk around the wall but with my unerring wisdom I took it into my head in the middle of the day (mad dogs and Englishmen???) without hat in my inimitable fashion and nearly died of sweaty heat. Once you get half way there’s no turning back!! I staggered home and did my writing up of lesson thingo. I did manage to rouse myself enough to go out again in the late afternoon for a mild passeggiata but that’s all.

Today it was back to class, maybe a little better today because I’d concentrated on getting my head around the past imperfect. But the class isn’t a compatible class at all which is probably at the heart of my restlessness this week. This means I haven’t got any playmates at the end of the school day…just a lot of emails from last weeks friends!!

I went food shopping, came home for lunch, wrote up the day’s lesson and then, more sensibly, went for my 3.5 giros around the wall in the afternoon. I haven’t done the 3.5 kms for a little while so the bum protests.