A night at the opera (eventually)

11/5 Stresa to Lucca
Oh no, no hot water again so it was a dance under the drops again. I told the lady at reception, she said ‘oh no, I checked, it’s 34 degrees’ and I said ‘no, it’s completely cold again’. But when we went back up after breakfast it was hot again, really strange but not good.

And then we come to the train pass. We took the train to Milan just before 10, had booked seats and no-one checked our print-out. Had a half hour before the next train to Florence and on this leg they were checked. We handed over our printed confirmation of purchase, showed our app, shrugged our shoulders and said we couldn’t make it work. The woman tut-tutted a bit then was very helpful, tapped away at my phone, no idea what she did but she showed Pete something and he thinks he knows what to do to activate the trip on Sunday. Fingers crossed.

We were quite surprised to be given a lunch box on the Milan train with a small ham roll, some kind of mini crackers, water, juice and a square of chocolate. The very pleasant Swiss lady next to us offered her roll and juice to Pete (some kind of allergy) so he was happy. The next leg was Florence to Lucca, a local train and fairly full, no suitcase storage so we managed to get 2 x 2 facing seats and put the bags opposite – not ideal but we had no choice. I like looking in back yards, lots of vege gardens coming up now, and alot of market garden-type farms too. There were more poppies along the lines and roadsides too. At one station I noticed paintings above the windows, have put in a photo

Got a taxi to our BnB which was a bit of an eye-opener, the streets are so narrow (see the photo) with tight corners and when vehicles come face-to-face it’s a bit of a stand-off with more than three point turns to work round each other. We’re staying at https://www.cortetoro.it/gallery.php , up two steep flights of stairs with the bags, helped by owner Giovanni who settled us in and gave us a very comprehensive ‘how to’ with the doors (big old locks), showed us the pretty terrace, and was very pleased that we came from New Zealand as he’d worked in Queenstown for a couple of ski seasons and loved it. He had his Australian sheepdog, Guillaume, with him; I’m not a dog lover but this boy was so laid back he was actually horizontal – asleep sprawled on the floor most of the time!

Our room is lovely, very comfortable and I was very impressed considering it cost less than the Stresa hotel and is 100% better. We had a cuppa then went out to explore, we found the cathedral and then decided to go to the Puccini opera performance in the next-door church, Giovanni had given us a brochure about it. Puccini was born in Lucca and lived part of his adult life here, and Lucca has made a real feature of that by staging concerts (over 350 per year), festivals and other music-related things. This church had been turned into a concert hall and the acoustics were amazing, a pianist and two soloists singing turn-about. Neither of us is musical but we really enjoyed it.

Giovanni had recommended a nearby restaurant, Tosca (amongst others), it was close by so in we went, showed them his business card as he’d told us to and we got a discount as well as a free glass of prosecco which was very nice. The meal was excellent too. So we headed ‘home’ after our train ride and explorations, very satisfying.Read more