Grand Guinigi Lucca

On our way north, from Rome, towards the Italian Riviera we made just a slight detour to Pisa to see the famous Torre Pendente (leaning tower). We're here to tell you, it is in fact leaning and we weren't interested in climbing to the top to see if we could get it to lean any more (and trust us, with the amount of pasta, vino, formaggio, etc. combined with the large amounts of tourists at the top of this structure... you never know). But ...

Good Day everyone,
We've been traveling throughout Tuscany the past few days. We hit rain in Pisa .....lots of rain....but we used the Cathedral as a sanctuary ....imagine that! After the rain we drove to a beautiful and sunny view of the Mediterrain Sea. Came back that evening and decided we ...

Pisa

woke up to pouring rain again so lucky we had a good look at the views the afternoon before… but made a tricky drive down in rain then onto Autostade.. Very fast but pouring rain to start with… finned up as we neared the coast… made it to Pisa… drove in traffic and down one way streets.. Mainly the right way we ...

... Anyway after much driving we met a local who understood English… unfortunately he seemed only able to say he understood English .. And with us asking for the sea and him agreeing with everything.. It was more sea..si sea.. Si….very confusing…anyway put feet in a creek which seemed to be heading for the sea… and called it quits…..

The rain picked up again and it was a bit of a difficult drive for Geoff to make it to a town ...

... I had been told that the end of the hike was the best part, finishing with a beach that is more than welcome after a tough hike in the sun. We didn’t finish the hike until almost 7 and it had rained a little… not exactly encouraging us to jump in the water. So instead we got a bottle of wine and watched the thunderstorm that was brewing offshore. I even got a couple lightning photos because I’m that ...

After travelling for the last 6 or more months without a real break we thought we might just settle down for the winter, instead of heading back to London and back to work. We are plonking ourselves with some of Dino's relatives in Tuscany.
Shona can't speak a word of Italian, but is planning to learn and not one of Dino's relatives speaks English. It should be an interesting few months.
We ...

... me started about that! Everyone knows that flights from JFK to Orlando are supposed to be cramped, but to Pisa? Who goes to Pisa besides me and Galileo Galilei? The flight was long and tiring, and at one point I almost asked the flight attendant for fresh-squeezed water. But still… I was going to Italy !
Personally, I think airplane seating should be handled like dinner party seating: the flight ...

... the trip to Lucca, and my tagging along. The concert was on Sunday evening, so we spent the day being tourists, and had a fabulous lunch at the Boca San Antonio. In the evening we met up and easily managed to sell the extra ticket I'd accidentally bought. The others went to the seating area in the Plaza Napoleon whilst I had to make do with the standing ticket which was all I'd been able to get. Words can't describe the feelings I had hearing the ...

... time, blah blah blah, We left them. Met a few cool kids that were in the 'packing' major at michagan, they were on a trip from their study abroad in London... We ended up finding a nice beach away from the city to put our bags, start a fire, a get our drink and rest on... at 1 am i put my goggles on... i wasn't that tired, took a nice 30 minute swim in the ocean, butt ass naked. God what a freeing experience!!! Off to Rome!

Yesterday, Feb. 11, a few of us went to Lucca. It was amazing. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been. It went beyond my expectations of what I thought an Italian town was like. The street lights, a carousel, piazzas, gelato, chocolate, churches, art...I could go on forever. Most of the pictures I took were with my film camera so when I get the digitals from the other girls I will post them here. It was definetly a time when I wished I had brought a ...