www.henningn.dk

Check out
Tuscany photos
Tuscany photostory
Florence photostory
Siena photostory
Volterra photostory
Cinque Terre photostory
Lucca/Bagni di Lucca photostory
Pisa photostory
Danish version

Sunday, march 5'th

Leaving windy Vennazza early in the morning. Train to La Spezia and another one to Viareggio and another one to Lucca. It's raining here, so I hurry to my hotel Affittacamere Centro Storico, right in the citycentre.

At 1 the rain has almost stopped. The rain has it advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that most tourist stay inside - the disadvantage is that you're getting wet.

Lucca is a cozy little town with 87.000 inhabitants. My first walk takes me past Chiesa di San Michele in Foro. It's an old thing from the 11'the century build like a wedding-cake. On to Piazza Anfiteatro, that used to be an old roman amphitheater, but now made in to a very nice piazza with cafe's and nice houses around.

Time for a walk around Lucca on the city wall surrounding the old part of the town. Such a wall is a great thing. It keeps most car outside of the city-center and it makes for a great walk. It's 4 km. long, and since the rain has stopped, more people are out here. This is the place to meet your neighbours, lift your hat, say "Buena Sera", have a chat - while listening to the football matches this sunday on you pocketradio.

Monday, march 6'th

Lovely morning this one. The hotel has a special feature - breakfast in the room. At 9 they knock on the door, and a great breakfast-table is placed outside the door.

Today is the day for a visit you have to do. It's called Pisa, and the train takes about 30 minutes.

There's supposed to be some kind of famous tower in Pisa. Famous because it's leaning. But they are cheating. The tower is not leaning at all. The streets around - and the cathedral is leaning - but the tower is definately straight. But noone dares to tell, because it's such a huge sigth, and the tourist-industry in Pisa would suffer deeply if people found out.

I don't want to spend 15 Euro and 1½ hour of waiting for getting up a straight tower. So instead I spend 2 Euro and no waiting for the slightly leaning cathedral.

After that I talk a walk around Pisa. Nice town - plenty of students - and really no sights beside the tower. In the afternoon I return to Lucca.

Later another walk in Lucca outside the wall this time, to see some other neighbourhoods. There are lot of strange small shops in Lucca - very specialised. For instance a shop only selling cleaningthings and toiletarticles.

Dinner at a local restaurant. Their local Minestrone-soup is good on a cold night in Lucca.

Another Lucca-day today, with visits to major and minor sights in the city.

First it's time to see the city from the top. That is the top of Torre Guinigi with a nice city-view. There's even a huge oak-tree on the top of the tower.

Later it's time for the Cathedral in Lucca. Very old - 11. century. The style is also wedding-cake-style.

Outside lunch today. A nice panini in the park of Villa Bottini. On to Piazza Anfiteatro and through the shopping-streets of Lucca and back to a break at the hotel.

Tour 2 takes me to Chiesa di San Michele, just opposite my hotel. Inside it's almost just a dark room - nothing special - and under renovation as most churches seem to be all the time. On to Piazza Napoleone and Piazzale G. Verdi, and a visit to Palazzo Mansi. That's a fine building with some old furnitures, paintings and more things. I'm the only one visiting this late afternoon.

Dinner - and back to the hotel for the evening.

Bagni de Lucca is actually 2 small villages. Ponte (bridge) and Villa (city). There's a few km. between the 2 cities. I get off the bus at Villa and walk to Ponte. It's very nice out here, with hills and a good fresh air from the mountains. The rive Lima runs just beside the road connecting the two villages.

Down in Ponte I find a nice bar, with a good lasagne and a nice cup of coffee, before returning with the bus back to Lucca.

In Lucca it's time for another walk - this time without nothing that I have to see. It's a nice city just walking around. Dinner at my favourite minestrone-place.

After breakfast a last walk around Lucca, before departure by train to Pisa Airport at 1 pm. As usual I'm at the airport in very good time for my 4.30 departure to Amsterdam. That's not necessary, since you obviously can't trust italian airlines. When we get's closer to 4.30 they suddenly say 6 - and getting close to 6 they change it to 7.20.