Tuesday, March 22, 2011 (Part 6)Our next destination after Pisa is the town of Lucca, and one of the reasons that we made the detour to Pisa is because the two towns are fairly close together. They are both in the western end of Tuscany. Tuscany is another one of those ancient Italian towns that has a preserved sections that contains buildings, walls and churches that date back hundreds and thousands of years.
Lucca is particularly unique because the "old town" section of the city is still surrounded by an ancient earthen wall. The wall is about 60 feet tall and very wide -- maybe several hundred feet wide on its flat top. Because of its unique shape and wide plateau top, 100 years or more ago, it the top of the wall was transformed into a tree-lined, pedestrian boulevard. Today, it is a major attraction and is very heavily used by walkers and bikers alike.
We made our way from Pisa to Lucca very easily and quickly found ourselves driving through the main entrance gate through the wall and into one end of town. We should have immediately parked, but we did not.
Instead, we started driving into the city and promptly got very lost. Worse than that, we ended up driving in a section of the old town that is forbidden to cars unless you have a resident's permit. We managed, by sheer luck, to get ourselves out of the maze of streets (many of
them one-way) and back to the main gate.
At this point, Dad parked the car and Katherine and I proceeded back into the town on foot to find our hotel. We located it easily and then went back to direct Dad to the hotel's parking lot several blocks from the main gate. We are staying in a lovely little hotel on the main pedestrian street (called Via Fillungo). The Hotel is called Palazzo Busdraghi and the rooms are quaintly decorated and very comfortable.
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