Zoe's take on Lucca and Pisa

standing outside of Lucca's walls

                              Today we hoped to get an early start to drive to Pisa and Lucca but we ended up leaving back seat. It was Nadia, Lanie , Meredith Brooks, my mom , my dad and I in one car and the rest of the Brookses in the other. Not far into our drive, the Brookses’ car began having problems. They ended up having to skip Lucca and meet us at Pisa.    

                            Lucca was really fun. The original city is enclosed by high, wide walls with newer additions to the city outside. The walls were originally built to keep out the city’s

eating our picnic lunch

enemy, Florence and are so wide that they have parks on top of them. We climbed on top of the walls , walked the two miles all the way back to our car and had a picnic lunch on top of the wall. Riding bikes on top of the walls seems to be a popular activity here.

we sat on the highest part of the wall

                           We met up with the Brookses in a grassy field near the leaning tower. There are many tourist attractions near the leaning tower but we only went into one of them, the cathedral which is amazingly beautiful. The cathedral is the only one of the attractions that is free, although they have a strange rule that you have to go up to the desk and get a ticket to go in and they will only give each person two tickets. Unfortunately, Nadia and Meredith were both wearing tank tops so, along with some of the boys who were wearing shorts, they were not allowed to go in due to the knees and shoulders covered rule. Nadia, Meredith, Lanie and I bought tee shirts on the way out.