Lucca and opera - day 9

Fine and 23 degrees

Well I kind of prefer a clean towel, but…. so we washed all the towels yesterday except for Jody’s. Last night she kindly handed me a new towel. When I showered this morning I thought it smelt a bit off, and then when Jody was searching for her towel realised that yes, she had given me her manky old one that she had been using for days. Good times! Not a great morning for her in the cognitive stakes. She boiled the kettle, so I made her a cup of tea. Then she got a bit confused at the number of cups on the table – yep, she had already made herself one! Am hoping the day gets better…..

After handwashing some clothes and doing our dishes and mucking around a bit, we didn’t head off on our bikes until around 10.30am. First stop was riding around the walls of Lucca – 5km circle. Lots of people walking, running and riding around the walls. On the outside of the walls was a huge area of grass with walking/biking tracks. Lots of people were walking their dogs there. We spied a market from the top of the walls, and thought we would head for there. But sort of got distracted by realising that we were by the entrance that we took Nico through last night. So we retraced our steps on the bikes – by golly we were lucky not to meet cars coming the other way with Nico. We found another market and had a look around there. And then were a bit hungry, so found somewhere to eat. Roz keeps telling me I have to try fresh pasta, so thought this place might be good. Hmmm, no-one else came in there to eat while we were there, and the pasta took forever and something went in the micorwave. Well it was edible, and not too bad, but won’t be going there again!

One of Jody’s friends had suggested a Puccini opera that was on every night in Lucca. Puccini was born here, but it was only 80 years after his death that he was being celebrated here. We asked a number of places where this place was for the opera, and got sent all around the place. A couple of people said there are a hundred churches in Lucca, so we can’t know where they all are. In the end, we just had enough and decided to go and find the first markets that we saw from the wall. Lo and behold, the markets were beside the info centre that sold tickets to the opera – phew! So we bought them, and then went back to Nico – about a 3km bike ride.

Jody retreated to her bed for a wee rest, but I thought I should go and investigate around the area on my bike seeing as we will be leaving tomorrow. About 400m down there road there was a stopbank, and a river on the other side. I rode the wrong way down the one way street by the river (bikes just go anywhere here!), and then round various tracks. I found a gorgeous spot by a bridge with the river going over a wee dam. Lots of people were walking and swimming dogs here. Then I went further and found the enormous carpark that we had been warned against. There were quite a few motorhomes parked in here.

Then back to Nico where I made a yummy salad with bacon and egg in it. Then back on the bikes and off to town for the Opera. It isn’t something that I would normally do, but was rather interesting. There were a male and female singer with just 1 pianist who was amazing. It was held in a church, and it was rather cool in there but with great acoustics. It was just over an hour long which was good. And when we came out at 8.20pm it was only just getting dark, so we hightailed it back to Nico as we only had 1 bike light between us.

So tomorrow we are intending to leave Italy – it has only taken us 5 days, we thought it might take a lot longer. We both love Italy, the shopping and scenery is amazing. But I am looking forward to going places that I haven’t been before. We have about a 5 hour drive, and will be going through lots of tolls, but Jody seems to have that pretty sussed now – as long as we use cash anyway!

Ciao ciao ciao!Read more