First of many

We never intended visiting Lucca, but why not. We are in the vicinity. Let’s take a look.

This was sure to be the first of many trips to the historic towns of Italy. Initial thoughts, beautiful avenues of trees, a great way of providing that necessary shade in the summer.

Like many other Italian towns, Lucca is surrounded by walls. These are a little different to the usual; they are very wide, with large expanses of grass on top, they are also surrounded by extended grass fields to the sides, giving the impression of gardens both on and below.

It is Saturday, so we are not alone in relaxing, it seems that the whole of Lucca is out and about, cycling, walking, running, or like us wandering the walls.

This is not a suitable photo to express this!

We enter the town via this rather foreboding gate and tunnel. It gives you a hint of the depth of the walls.

And our first proper, original Italian church. We are going to get thoroughly bored of these, and you will get bored of our anti religious rants about the atrocities of the various religious churches.

Quite nice this one. A bit stripy, a bit patchy, a bit old, the interior did not deserve a photo!

And a bit stony, with big doors, columns, windows, frescos.

Churchy really.

Church behind us, and into the nitty gritty of the town. Cute.

Nice tight streets, narrow and tall. Those Italian cyclist are as bad as the Italian drivers. No sense of spatial awareness. A liability.

Four storeys would be frowned upon in the UK, but then we don’t have the high sun angle, and it would be a lot more dingy and dank in London. Those bright colours aren’t nearly as pleasing in a grey, grey sky, drizzle and 5 degrees.

It is mainly pedestrian, which is nice.  And another beautiful day, pale blue wintery sky and scurrying clouds.

So the tops of the walls, plenty of room for recreation, where are all those people we were talking about?

Someone’s gone overboard with the mock Italian sculpture look I think. Anything to appease the American market.

Ah the tatty, never repaired, leaky roof, which is so admired. Wonky, falling down, but oh, so original, this one is recreated at vast expense, you pay extra for leaking.

Nice arches.

Nice ruins.

Nice…not sure what that is!

Nice roots, Susana loves roots, especially knobbly ones.

Back to churches.

This one is less patchy.

Hmmnnnn…. time for lunch on  the wall I think, very touristy, but we can pretend being American.

After lunch we find a cafe to abuse the Wi-Fi. Susana isn’t allowed coffee after 11.00am, it makes her too hyper and she can’t sleep!

I look at that coffee with envy. My favourite one: milky but strong. Seems they got it here. If it was early morning, I would have had two of those! SM

Now that gotta be the winner with regard to excessive, superfluous columns for no apparent reason, nice tower though. I love these fake porticos, stuck on the front, hoping you won’t peak around the corner to work out that it is all for show.

And I really don’t get the overlong chains draped on the ground….trip hazard!

These churches just keep on coming, how many does one town need!

Still die for those narrow streets and this time a sensible cyclist (probably not Italian).

Now this is fun, a tower with a fluffy top, well trees, whoever would have thought, bizarre.

We had to experience that one. Great view over the city, all those wonky roof tiles.

But to be honest, those trees just get in the way, or the planters do anyway. They just take up too much room and there is no way of passing anyone.

The shade in summer though, probably worth the agro.

More roofscapes.

And more, those leaves always getting in on the action.

Lovely narrow streets, all jaggedly.

And from the bottom, like some large climbing wall.

Another tourist trap; an oval shaped square!

And then we were back at out patchy church and time to move on.

For the night we had selected another free aire which was part way between Lucca and our visit tomorrow, Siena. Certaldo turned out to be a good choice.

For some reason the car park was free of all but one motorhome. The rest had found another venue on the edge of town which looked more crowded and noisy. This was perfect for us. The guide suggested there was a lift which went to the old town. We were keen to find it.

It wasn’t working, but still a nice walk up. The scale of this place, tiny. Maybe a 100m end to end.

Views overlooking the new town below.

But up above, tranquillity. It is getting dusky, there are very few people around, and just a few old streets to explore.

Lots of hidden corners, and people do actually still live up here.

Which must be madness when all the proper tourists arrive in the height of summer.

But for us, abandoned streets, perfect.

Tourist free photos.

And decrepit, decaying streets.

And decrepit, decaying buildings.

There is one place open here, so we stop for a drink.

Perfect end to a beautiful day.

GDR