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| Typical Lucca street |
We started the day with a full vacuum and mop of the floors, after which the house seems an awful lot nicer, thankfully. Not what you’d expect to do on an exchange, but not really a problem either. Off to explore Lucca on foot at 11am. The apartment is only about 200m from one of the main gates into the walled town so it’s wonderfully convenient. Just intended to have a quiet stroll around. We will be here for two weeks, and since we do not need to look for real estate now, we should have plenty of time to explore. It's an attractive small city with the old part completely enclosed in a large wall. There's a particularly lovely square that's actually oval being built on the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre.
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| Piazza dell Anfiteatro |
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| Overhead of Lucca |
Of course the shops all closed on cue at noon or 12.30pm but not before I (K!) had tried on a few dresses in an upmarket store just off the main square. One fitted really well but we thought it wasn’t quite up to wedding style. Usual bread/cheese lunch at home and spent the afternoon planning our next fortnight, that is, trips for us over the next week and then trips to do with Alastair in the following week. We drive down to collect him from Rome airport next Tues, though we will probably leave a day early and take in some sights on the way.
Our hosts Carmelo and Tania called to collect us at 8pm and we went to one of their favourite restaurants just within the town walls. They are a lovely couple. Tania (Tatiana) is Russian but speaks English with a strong American accent (due to her nanny) and Carmelo is an Italian who grew up in southern Italy. He is an Italian airforce C130 pilot so is often overseas on military missions, e.g. a 4 month stint in Afghanistan. He has been stationed throughout northern Africa, which he loves, and has an abiding passion for travel. We had a very enjoyable evening with them, including sampling the typical local fare of Tuscany. Accompanied by chianti of course.
They stayed in our house during April, and have met our good neighbours Sandy and Lynette, who did their usual wonderful trick of helping our exchange guests when we are not there. It was fun meeting them for the first time and chatting about their impressions of NZ and learning more about the Italians. They were very impressed with our beaches and natural landscapes, didn’t think much of our coffee and thought NZers were very laid-back. We said we didn’t think much of their coffee and loved Italian history and architecture. Couldn’t believe it when they said that all the local coast is just a sea of rented sun umbrellas and loungers in summer and you can’t set foot on a piece of beach without paying between 30 and 50 Euro each, depending on the season.
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