Carignano Lucca

... market (without the sampling) with lots of lovery deli's, cafe's and patisseries. Ofcourse we had to buy the local pastry called a buccellato which is kind of a cross between a biscuit and a fruit loaf... yummy with the morning coffee.<br><br>Before too long Kim pointed out her favorite bar from last time and pull me in to join her in a wine or 3. The tapas were as good as Kim had ...

... one was also closed, but there were no hours on the doors. Tara had said that she wanted to go bike riding but this time on her own bike which she handled quite well and we rode twice around the wall then walked back to the playground which the girls had seen everytime we rode around the town. On the way home we decided to look for a ...

... the bus to the village rather than take the 363 steps up. We had a quick look around, at a small chuch as well as a lookout and then walked down the steps, back to the train station. By this time, the girls were getting tired as it was quite a bit warmer than the weather we were used to &#8211; in the mid- twenties I would say. We thought we were catching the train to Manarola, the next station as we were going to walk from Manarola to Riomaggiore but for ...

Just realized those not on facebook haven't seen pictures from Pisa and Florence. No long recap of Anthony and I's weekend in Tuscany, for obvious reasons. Also note that "Anthony and Alison's Great Adventure" was like taking a knife.<br><br>Love you guys! :)<br>

... also talked everyone into climbing the Clock Tower as we still had tickets for it from the day it rained. It was a pretty hard climb and a bit smelly from pigeon poo. The view was worth it though. We also had a coffee at a bar which was also a bit of a delicatessen and I found Amedi chocolate which is made in Tuscany and is supposed to be very nice.<br><br>We went home for a rest as we were heading out later for ...

... our balcony!<br><br>Back on the Ruby, we had time to relax on the Sun Deck. It was a very warm afternoon, in the high 20's so a relaxing couple hours seemed in order! Being a tourist can be exhausting! <br><br>We made sure we had dinner early as the final show of the Broadway Ballroom was in the Princess Theatre at 8:30pm. This show rivaled a very high level performance as the show featured the talents of the ...

... guess. lol. We went to an Irish bar and they were celebrating the 250th anniversary of Guinness. We sat down next to an older couple from England who had also been to St. James' Gate in Dublin so we talked about that common interest for a bit. The Guinness Girls gave us free mini pints of Guinness and we got to keep the glass. I don't know how my 2 glasses are going to make it back in tact to the states but I am determined to find a way!<br><br>So before I could make any more ...

... and bag with laptop and other things pinched - in broad daylight too . . Soured our view of Lucca somewhat as you could imagine. Feverish series of phonecalls to Peugeot Open Europe (lease company), who weren't particularly helpful. I went 'round to the local police station, and spent a while trying to explain what had happened - plenty of miming as they didn't speak very much English at all (and my Italian consisted of ...

... but eventually the machine took the 5 Euro bill, and I just managed to catch the train. Lucca is a quiet little town. I have coined a new term - "JABLIT" (just another beautiful little Italian town). There isn't much here. But for a sleepy little town, a lot was happening today. There was some kind of festival going on. The duomo was just another duomo. There was a pathetic beggar lady hanging around outside of the duomo. She was bawling, asking me for ...

... to prove it... The second day was a trip to Lucca. Lucca is the main city around where we live. About 75,000 people live there and we are about a 15 minute drive away in a small town called Marlia. Lucca is a walled in city, where one can walk the entire wall that surrounds the city. No traffic is allowed in except for those who live inside the walls and buses. We walked around the walls of the city, saw a few important cathedral's ...