Historical meeting in Lucca

For the first time in human history Yvonne met Randall in Lucca. Chief tour guide Yvonne had spent three days living with her two Roman elephants sharing her room at the extremely comfortable and very well located Locanda S. Agostino. Just a few metres from Via Fillungo and the parade of Italians on holiday. And after three days alone and just eight minutes later than planned, Randall turned up led in by Mario, our host.

And Lucca centro, a walled 500 year old city, is just perfect for Italian style parading. We thank Ben and Sarah for advising us to take a look here and to avoid the alternative idea of Florence, as great a city it might be.

So we have done the obligatory city walls walk sharing spaces with families, lovers, joggers, bikes and picnickers. Summer is gradually getting stronger here and the days just that little bit warmer each day.

Apart from eating and drinking our way around the city, accompanied by a gelato and an aperol spritz or two, we have even been shopping our way along.

Randall had never seen Florence so we took a train there one day. Either we are becoming more sensitized to tourist crowds or numbers are rising, but the Medici city draws them in in droves. The ambiance was good though, despite the numbers, as tourists of all ages, colours and brands enjoyed their time exploring the sights. But one day was enough at this time of our lives with mobs that big.

In the home of Giacomo Puccini, one just has to learn about him and his music. So we had just an hour of recital concert early one evening. We visited his home today as well. And even though Italy is not part of the tournament, World Cup soccer is on screens in various eating and drinking places of Lucca. We lost our first match it seems. Such is life, we were probably robbed if reporting is as usual.

But ever so slowly our minds are turning to Monday and our large travel day over to Sardinia. Yvonne is now very keen to see water and perhaps dip her toes into the Mediterranean.