Italy Trip 2016 - day seven (Pisa [again] and Lucca)

you're in the home stretch!  you can do it!

Day Seven:  Pisa (again) and Lucca

After all that food (and wine) on Thanksgiving, I slept pretty hard and found it difficult to wake up.  Thankfully, we again planned a little sleep-in time.  Today was the day we had to take one of our group back to the Pisa airport to head home early (he had a work event, so he couldn’t continue to Venice, darn it).  We decided that since we had to drive to Pisa anyway, we’d go early enough so that we could take a look at the Keith Haring mural there, but not so early that our friend had to sit at the airport for too many hours.

You know my research passion, so of course, when I was researching Pisa, I was interested to see that Keith Haring’s final public mural was on the side of a convent in Pisa.  It’s on the other side of town from the Leaning Tower, so we couldn’t fit it in that first night but we were happy to track it down this morning.  The GPS worked well this time, though around the Pisa airport, it does seem to go a little insane.  But we were fortunate that once we were really close to the convent, a parking spot opened up on the street.  We walked up a lovely little street, crossed a lovely little square, and there it was.  The mural covers the entire side wall of the Chiesa di Sant'Antonio abate.  It's really awe-inspiring to see - with the sun shining behind the building, the colors of the mural just sparkle.  At least they did to me.  We all took tons of pictures from all sorts of angles. There's also a cafe named Haring across the street, which looked eclectic and fun.  It was also pretty busy, so after getting our fill of the mural, we just decided to drop our pal off at the airport.  Good thing we didn't linger, because, once again, the GPS went insane with the airport directions and it took us awhile to get out of the town and headed back to the airport.  There was also quite a bit of traffic, so we ended up just sort of pulling over next to a parking lot and letting our pal out of the car.  I was sorry I didn't get to hug him goodbye (I was buckled into the other side of the car), but I guess it kept me from crying over his leaving.

After we dropped him off, we set off for Lucca.  I'd been longing to see Lucca, not only because it's supposed to be a gorgeous walled city, but also because it was the birthplace of opera composer Puccini, and they have opera concerts/recitals nearly every weekend. I was thrilled to see that there would be a recital the night we were going to be there, so I booked a ticket online.  I'm the only one of our group who was interested in the recital, so I just got one ticket.  I was excited that we would have nearly a whole day to tour the city before I sat down to listen to some beautiful music.

Of course, the GPS went a little nuts again.  I had some notes from a travel blog about where we should park, but we kept getting led in circles.  Finally, we could see the walls of the city and found a parking lot across the street from a wall entrance (again, there was a REALLY tight entrance to that parking lot - Italy should really work on that).  We got out and prepared to head into Lucca - a very nice local lady told us we should make sure not to leave anything in the car and to write down which entrance we went in.  I guess she knew from experience about getting lost and being robbed.  Or something.  What was funny was we ended up going in the entrance that we had originally looked for via the GPS!  So, I guess it was serendipity.

Once again, we arrived when most of the shops and restaurants were closed for their afternoon break.  But we did find a cafe that was open, so after wandering around and window shopping, we sat down to have a little lunch (though I was still pretty stuffed from dinner the night before).  We happened on the square with the Puccini statue - all the cafes were named after his operas.  We were at Caffe Manon Lescault, which was cute.  I ordered a margherita pizza, which was quite tasty, though very large.  I was happy to share with my pals.  While we sat there, I looked in my guidebook about what we might want to do next.  We decided to wander over to the other side of the town to see if we could find the bike paths the guidebooks talked about. 

On our way, we did more shopping and soaking in of the lovely atmosphere.  Lucca is yet another gorgeous medieval town, where time has seemingly stopped.  We kept remarking to each other it was as if we were on a movie set, everything was so beautiful, it was almost unreal.  As we walked, we came upon the Palazzo Pfanner, which was unfortunately closed for the season.  It seemed rather nondescript for a palazzo, but ok.  We would get a glimpse of its beauty in a few minutes.  After we turned the corner past the palazzo, we found a church, Chiesa d'Sant Augustino.  We went inside and admired the beautiful frescoes and stained glass.  We saw an elderly nun there, and after we had placed some coins in one of the offering boxes, she started talking to us, in Italian, about Elena Guerra, the patron saint of Lucca, who is displayed by the altar.  We understood a little bit, about the convent and sainthood, but that was about it.  I just think the nun was glad people had stopped by and spent a little time in the chapel.

photo credit: Gregg Moore

After more wanderings, we found the place to ascend to the walls where we could walk along them and look down on the town.  As we took this lovely walk, we realized we were behind the Palazzo Pfanner - wow!  That's where the beauty is!  A definite must-see for our next trip.  As we walked along the walls, we found where they curved down into a town square and where you could rent bikes to ride along the walls.  Owing to my out-of-shapeness (I have precarious balance under the best of circumstances, and not having ridden a bike for over 30 years made me wary), and because I didn't want to be too tired (or break a limb) to enjoy my opera recital later, I opted to sit out the bike ride.  My pals were excited to get started.  I took a nice seat on the edge of the wall and did some people-watching while they were gone.  There was one older gentleman who kept staring at me and I'm pretty sure he was getting ready to sell me into white slavery, but he finally left.  I tried to chat with another older gentleman and his dogs, but it wasn't much of a conversation. My 5% fluency was not really working out well today.  I also did a little guidebook/GPS reconnaissance for our next locale.  But it was a nice, quiet respite until my friends came back from their ride, which they loved. 

I wanted to head towards the church where the opera recital would be held, so I would know exactly where it was.  I also wanted to walk through the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, to get a look at it - a Roman theater used to exist in that spot and now it has shops and homes above, but the shape is still intact.  There was a beautiful shop there that sold homemade creches, which I loved and I made a purchase.  We walked along the main shopping street, did window shopping and real shopping, then used dueling phones' GPS to find Santi Giovanni, where my recital would take place.  The ticket office wasn't open yet, so we did more exploring for awhile.  About a half hour before my recital was to start, we wandered over there again and saw that the building was open.  What a beautiful room and beautiful space to hear opera!  I picked up my ticket and program and asked if there was a restroom before the concert.  He said no, but perhaps the cafe across the street would let me use their restroom.  My pals decided to go with me to the cafe and we'd all have a drink before the recital, that way I could go to the restroom in peace. Our server had quite a man bun (I saw a lot of man buns in Italy, which seemed odd to me; I consider Italian men to be too stylish for such a silly hairdo, but oh well) and I enjoyed a nice pot of tea before heading back to the church to hear some Puccini.  My pals were going to find a ristorante to enjoy while I was enjoying the music.

I have to say that the Puccini (they also did some Mozart) program was sublime.  I am so glad I did it - when else can I say I saw Italian opera singers perform in a glorious 13th century church!  I'll admit to feeling tears come on several times.  SO beautiful.  There were two acts to the concert - each act had the soprano do two solos, the baritone do two solos, the pianist did a solo number, then the singers did a duet.  I thought they were both spectacular singers - I found it interesting that the soprano would start with "O mio babbino caro" from Gianni Schicchi, but she sounded wonderful.  She had a very sweet and light quality to her voice that I enjoyed, though she did make some really odd faces when she hit her high notes.  I enjoyed hearing the aria from Puccini's Edgar, which is a piece I don't know at all.  I also thought the pianist was an extraordinary musician.  His solos were fantastic.  The two duets were also wonderful.  At the end of the concert, they all received such rapturous applause that they did a couple of encores: "O sole mio," which made everyone smile, then they repeated their last duet, from Don Giovanni, again, with heightened acting.  It was all great fun and I loved every minute of it.

After the concert ended, they shepherded us out of the church pretty quickly, so I had a seat on the steps until my pals finished their dinner.  I only waited a few minutes, enjoying the night air, and then they arrived.  Their dinner sounded wonderful, so next time I go to Lucca, I want to try that restaurant, Gigi's Trattoria! We walked leisurely back to the car, which hadn't been broken into, thankfully, and made our way back to the villa for one last time. On our way back, we happened to drive through a small town that was completely lit up for Christmas! It was spectacular!  I was so busy enjoying looking at all the lights, I didn't get a good photo of them.  Oh well.  My memory of that sweet little town will stay with me.

One last night in the villa, one last night for after-hours drinking and talking about what was to come. What a wonderful week and I couldn't believe it was already almost over. The next day: on to Venice!!

photo credit: Gregg Moore

oh no!

photo credit: Gregg Moore