Lucca, Pisa, and mysterious European auto difficulties

We were hoping to visit the cities of Lucca and Pisa, but were a little skeptical when we saw them on the map.  As the crow flies, they are much further from the villa than “close” Siena, and no one wanted a repeat of that drive.  However, when we found that most of the distance would be on the highway, we decided to brave the trip.  We even managed to get a semi-early start, which was immediately derailed by the Brookses’ mysterious European car problems (see Bob’s entry below) and our combined dithering about what to do about them.

Without a GPS or detailed city maps, Bob and I have been relying on signs pointing to “Centro” to get us where we want to go.  This had worked fairly well but was not a great success in either Lucca or Pisa.  In Lucca the “Centro” signs abandoned us and the parking lots we passed were all full, so we eventually pulled into the first street spot we saw within sight of the famous huge wall that rings the old city.  (It turned out to be in kind of a residential district and I had to go a long way to find a bathroom and a place to buy bread for our lunch.)

That's the top of the tower with trees on top

Still, it was very cool eating our picnic lunch on top of the wall, surrounded by many bikers and joggers.  We ended up just making it around the 2-mile circumference in time to get back to our car before our parking expired.  Unfortunately we didn’t have time to actually locate and walk into the city center, which is supposed to be lovely.  We did see the city’s most famous tower in the distance, which has large oak trees growing on top of it.

Next up was Pisa, which should have been easy but turned out to be a driving challenge in many respects.  We finally managed to find a spot on the street, but had no idea how far we were from where we wanted to be.  Luckily we were able to get directions from a gelato shop and were only a 15-minute walk away, so we could thankfully leave the car behind.  We’re much better on foot, even if we have to carry Lanie.  I’ve been repeatedly apologizing to Bob for trying to save money by not adding myself as a driver on our rental car (though being the passenger/navigator is no picnic either).  Did I mention the rental car company gave us a brand new car?  I’m sure they thought they were doing us a favor and all, but it just makes us more nervous.

The city walls in Lucca

The Piazza dei Miracoli ("Square of Miracles") contains the tower, cathedral, and a few other buildings, as well as huge green open lawns (and tacky T-shirt shops).  In addition to the famous lean, the tower in Pisa (as well as the other buildings) is absolutely beautiful.  We cheaped out a bit here, as our group of 12 quailed at the 18 euro (about $24!) per person fee to climb the tower.  (Bob lucks out again!)  Instead we sat on the lawn and enjoyed the sunshine, and went into the gorgeous (and free) cathedral.  To wrap things up, the girls parted with some of their euros at the tacky T-shirt shops.

Result of tacky T-shirt shop expedition

This was our final night in Tuscany, so we celebrated with dinner at a local pizzeria.  We thought our 7:30 reservation would leave us with plenty of time, but alas, we had once again forgotten the rule that it takes twice as long as you think to get anywhere in this region.  Luckily we proved to be almost the only ones there at the early hour of 8pm.

***

From Bob:

There are so many ups and downs here, even beyond the pitch of the road to Greve in Chianti.  Today as we took what we thought would be a leisurely drive to Lucca and Pisa, we got derailed even before we hit the Autostrada.  An indicator in the car Chris and Wendy are borrowing from our landlords suggested that the car was about to run out of something.  But what? 

                The man at the gas station we stopped at in Figline said it was something that they sold at another filling station four kilometers away.  That was about all the information the language divide would let us have, save for the fact that when they got to the other station four kilometers away whatever it was would have to be put in the car through a small nozzle right next to the main gas tank hole.  Chris’ smart phone didn’t help with any translation advice and there was nothing we could think of that would explain this. 

               We left them in Figline and went on to Lucca.  The Brookses eventually found the local Fiat dealer, and although he had none of the special missing stuff to insert into the tiny nozzle, he was able to explain the situation.  It turns out that Chris and Wendy are borrowing a dual-fuel car.  The car was telling them they were running low on Liquid Natural Gas.  That was the missing stuff.  But all they had to do was press a button and the car would run on their full tank of gasoline (here it’s called benzene).  Who can figure out such devices? 

                They drove off to Pisa and eventually met us there.

Nadia is stealing Lanie's dessert again.  Nadia ordered
something that turned out to be some kind of whipped
yogurt creation and I don't think it was quite what she was
expecting.  Lanie's tiramisu was apparently preferable.

                But not before we enjoyed Lucca, which, as I explained to the kids today, is the opposite of New York City.  New York City has a park that is surrounded by the city.  Lucca is a city surrounded by a park – the medieval battlements have been converted into an elevated greenway with a running/cycling track around the whole old city.  We had enough time to circumnavigate the old city (two miles around), plus eat a picnic lunch and have some gelato, all while the Brookses were getting a lesson on alternative energy. 

                Well, actually, not all the Brookses.  Merideth has been riding with us.  There’s only so much room in a Fiat Punto.  In the states the Brookses travel around in a Suburban.  So we have two cars filled past capacity.  Four kids in each back seat.  It’s not something we would do back home, but, then again, neither is eating for dinner what we ate for dinner last night.  Or saying mille grazie all the time. 

                Speaking of dinner, we followed our landlords’ suggestions to what some consider the best pizza place in the region tonight.  It was a fun place, but I think we’ve had better pizza here.