Roadside Mysteries

Livorno is everyone’s gateway to Tuscany and all the tourists flock from Lovorno to Florence and maybe Pisa.  So while maybe 6 to 7 thousand visitors waited in line to get into the Uffizi or did the stupid photo op keeping the leaning tower steady, we chose to visit the town of Lucca with this woman:

Angelika with her stick

If you like tourists as much as we do, you will love visiting Lucca. It seemed as if we were the only visitors there that morning. The place is closed to personal motor vehicles so you won’t feel like you have to take out extra insurance while you stroll the quiet streets. My recommendation if you’ve been to Florence and Pisa is to check this place out. Angelika was our guide to Lucca and you cold tell she liked visiting this town.

Lucca City Walls (Renaissance era)

Just one of three wall systems, Lucca was founded by the Etruscans and became a Roman colony around 180 B.C.

Behind the first wall area are structures like this near the Roman era walls

The principle mode of transportation in Lucca

The Church of San Michele in Foro

This church has a huge facade made out of  white local marble; It’s the kind that Michelangelo preferred 9 out of 10 times!

Church detail

Silk trade house

The secret silk making process was hidden in Lucca (after they stole it from the Chinese, of course) for many years.

Getting ready to party

The annual ‘Settembre’ festival is starting up in a few days! Too bad we will miss it as we must be on our way to Rome tomorrow! Above, the windows are decorated with glass jars that will have candles lit at night during the festival’s ‘Luminaria di Santa Croce’

Giacomo Puccini’s house

On the right, I believe. It’s not quite ready to view inside, but it will be a museum in the future.

A Statue nearby of Giacomo

Note the cigarette in his right hand; Puccini died of throat cancer in 1924.

Napoleone gave his sister the town of Lucca for her birthday! The Piazza is the place for music festivals; In July this year ZZ Top and Crosby, Stills and Nash performed in the Piazza.

San Martino

Inside this dark church you can view a number of paintings on the walls if you put a 1 euro coin in a slot that will activate an electric lamp for about 40 seconds. Then at another part of the church is this:

Volto Santo di Lucca

This sculpture of probably the happiest looking crucifix we have ever seen was placed in this very spot by a miraculous event involving un-guided oxen or something like that. Check this link for more info.

and Monte Carlo:

The ancient Phoenicians were the first to  build here.

Of course we wouldn’t have known the place if it wasn’t for Grace Kelly. Too rich for our tastes; we are not planning on moving there in the near future unless I can get a good deal on a luxury yacht.

The Casino is the big draw here.

The prison is actually high class as well

The view from the prison!

Ship’s entertainment tonight

Something called the “Broadway Ballroom”; They had this giant disco ball drop on stage and inside was this dancing girl who came out singing

More of the cast

Lots of energy in this group! Hey, this cruise ship stuff ain’t so bad.  Looking forward to visiting some ancient cities in the next few days.

Well we did actually see Castell de Montjuïc and the wonderful mountain-side cemetery;

We tried to follow the instructions

It was Lord Dunsany who once said “I think that travel comes from some deep urge to see the world, like the urge that brings up a worm in an Irish bog to see the moon when it is full.” It is that time to travel and we have done so; unlike the worm, we took a much more tortuous route: Fort Collins – Denver – Philadelphia – Madrid – Barcelona. Will we do this again? I hope not!

Dude’s got a parachute!

In addition to the little Minolta camera that I have carried for the past two years to provide photographic evidence for this blog I have also been using the camera included in my Nintendo DSi. I found it to be easy to carry and good for candid shots. Sure, it’s got a fixed focus lens and the resolution is poor but I can hold it while I walk onto a plane and take picture of fellow travelers.

Watching our bag in Madrid

The baggage handlers were ignoring our bag (the brown one on the ground) and didn’t seem to be working until a woman with a clip-board came over and yelled at them to start moving. She pointed to our bag and they quickly placed it on board the plane going to Barcelona. Will the other three bags make it as well?

Loading bags onto the ship

Yes, they are looking down between the pier and the side of the ship. The makeshift ramp they were using broke and some of the passenger’s bags fell into the Adriatic Sea. I saw them fishing them out and wondered just who the lucky passengers were! Was this a harbinger of things to come?

Note: Jeanne and I decided to go on a Mediterranean cruise with some friends. We’ve never really been on a big cruise ship (except for Alaska) and thought that it would be a chance to experience the whole concept of constantly eating and touring a different country each day much like in the 1969 movie “If it’s Tuesday, it must be Belgium“. The ratio of the number of countries per days at sea were about the same as in the movie so I must believe that things have not changed much since 1969. We actually started our journey on September 1st, but I was certain that I would not be able to update this blog while at sea so I pre-date loaded a number of posts before leaving town. And now I and post-date loading this stuff. Yes, I can do that!