Part one didn’t start well. I opened the shutters and yelped. Rain! We had been warned, and yet I yelped.
Then it got worse. 20 downhill minutes and Jens pulled over for a voicemail. It was quite hard to make out apparently, standing in the rain on the roadside, but eventually it appeared that despite more than one reminder in recent days I had yet again left my phone charger, which is to say Jens’s phone charger, plugged into the wall. Jens was not pleased. I was wretched. And it was still raining.
The thought of retracing those miles, uphill, was just too depressing to contemplate, so on we went. With the rain getting harder and harder.
That set the tone for the day. It waxed, it waned, but all day it rained. Not too hard a day – mostly flat or slightly down, but incessant, and for long sections on unavoidable big roads, with constant heavy traffic, much of it heavy.
And then we reached Lucca.
Showered and rested, we set out for the old town. The rain had stopped, and all looked promising. Then just as we approached the old city walls the skies opened. Torrents. After a few minutes shivering under a tree we took refuge in a bar that on the face of it had little to recommend it, other than a roof.
At which point things took a turn for the better. Jens introduced me to the negroni – an excellent Italian invention, which consists of lots of alcohol in a glass with a couple of token bits of fruit and some ice. By the time we’d put paid to those the rain had all but stopped, and what little was left was not about to disconcert two such heroes as we, so off we went a wandering. And what a wander!
Lucca is a tourist town for sure, but what a town. Everywhere you looked was wonderful, every corner turned revealed new beauty. Even the super-rich shopping area was lovely – little shops full of fashion, and wine, and elegance. Beautiful old buildings, stunning churches, little waterways, wobbly paving, glistening in the rain. We just followed our noses for three, four hours. At one point finding ourselves in the most beautiful of ‘squares’, this one being round. I took a 360 degree panorama, below, which attempts but fails to do it justice. What could? But oh it was heart-raising just to be there. Nothing in Lucca was tacky, nothing overtly ‘touristy’, just a truly lovely old town, comfortable in its loveliness.
Finally, a cheerful local pizzeria, clearly geared to take-outs and deliveries, but with a table or three for weary travellers such as we. Perfect!
Oh, I nearly forgot – another classic Italian small act of kindness. Earlier in the day, huddled in the teaming rain by the side of one of those big, busy roads, waiting for a break in the traffic to enable us to turn left. After a minute or so an approaching car indicated left and stopped in the middle of the road, waiting for a break in the oncoming traffic. When one came, we took advantage, scrambling across quickly as we could, in the shelter of the ‘left-turning’ car. At which point he cancelled the indicator and carried on straight ahead. What a mensch! What a country! Viva Italia!