Lucca's Duomo (Cattedrale di San Martino)

Today was a great day. We were on our way to Florence, and we were driving basically via Pisa, so we thought we would drop in just to have a look at the icon that is the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Pisa itself was pretty crazy when e drove through, so we did the good Italian thing and parked illegally, and ran up to see the tower. As soon as we walked …

What a full week! We are trying to plan trips, but there is just so much to do in Florence!

On Fridays we have to leave by 10:30 so the maid can properly clean everything, so we thought it would be an excellent opportunity to do some museum hopping. We started with the Accademia, which is conveniently on my walk home from the bus stop …

Good Morning,

We all love Tuscany so much that we would love to stay longer!
We still have another 3 days here before heading to Rome!
A quick update on the last two days;

Sunday - a quiet morning sleeping in & reading books as we have the annual Luminara Festival in Pisa that night! THis is when 70,000 candles …

During our 45-minute drive to Lucca, we were able to view the true beauty of Tuscany. There exists only one route to Lucca and Pisa and man is it a beauty. Alongside the 2-lane streets, we passed farmlands consisting of the finest cypress trees, distant Mediterranean mansions, and green mountains (the epitome of a Tuscan landscape).

Upon …

My parents came all the way from Calgary to visit us here in Italy for a couple of weeks and Nina's mom and sister came down from Germany for a week. (Nina's sister hadn't seen my folks since we got married almost 15 years ago.) It was nice to be able to show our families a bit of Italy after really getting to know the country well over the past …

Officially naming Wednesday Adventure Day, if only because next Wednesday is going to be our Airports Are Annoying But Long Flights Are Worse day.

Today's Wednesday was considerably more fun though.

We got on the train early in the morning to head out to Pisa. The train was mostly empty and there was this elderly lady to my left, …

... churches than you can count. We only spent one night in Lucca, but so far it has been my favourite day in Italy. We plunged into Lucca at midday, after our train ride, checked out several churches, including a striped one like the Duomo in Siena, the ...

... make it available for acts. It was originally built for the same reason that they built these arenas all over Italy… whether here or Rome or even Lucca… but this wasn’t destroyed and looks magnificent. The top level (apart from about 20 ...

... in town to prove that it would be fantastic. We checked out the ‘teatro’, the Franciscan Monastery…the Duomo and the towers before choosing on od the quaint little ristorante that seemed to be operated by three middle aged guys that ...

... at one of the most beautiful cities in the world. We made our way through our well-rehearsed  initial guide through Lucca to ‘Brunella’…even though a bung wheel on Alycia’s luggage was slightly annoying…especially over ...

... his diary so we can actually remember what else we actually did this weekend) 03/09/11 Saturday This weekend the Lucca community are having a huge garden festival on three of the Balluardi called the Murabilia …the Balluardi have been fenced off ...

... nbsp;                  Another sun blessed day in Lucca… We are both spending time trying to get our heads around going backing to the ‘real’ world in ...

Day 4 - Wet San Gimignano , Tacky Pisa, and Stormy Lucca We have a nice breakfast at our sunny hotel in Siena, and headed out around 9am to see San Gimignano. We knew this was going to be our worst weather day before we left. We arrived in San ...

... when we visited Collodi, and we had pretty well decided not to bother. Looks like we should think again. We arrived in Lucca mid-afternoon, and discovered that Ristornate Bargo Gianotti closes on Mondays. We had lunch at a bar just up the street. ...

... even climbed the walls. It was a wonderful but hot walk of 4.2 km. Looking both down into the town, at the Duomo, palace, botanic gardens and the luxurious Palazzo Pfanner, and outside the walls at the eighteenth century mansions in some sections of ...

... to spend most of the day driving to save Tony the trouble of pushing me around. We went towards the mountains north of Lucca and stopped first of all to look at a beautiful medieval bridge which straddles the river Freddana, the Ponte della Maddalena. ...