Pisa, Lucca, and Firenze (#2)

Sorry for the delay, there have been birthdays to celebrate and more trips to take - all good stuff!  So, where was I?  Ah yes, Pisa, somewhere we absolutely had to go while living in Italy.  After our rain-soaked trip to Pisa, we journeyed to Lucca, a place that kept popping up on our radar screen as we were prepping to go on this trip.  

We should declare that this trip was so unplanned and so go-with-the-flow that we had to use our iphones to get GPS coordinates to places as we were driving to them.  I am proud of myself for being so unstructured.  If you know me, this is really not like me.  We arrived in Lucca to find a charming town, bigger than we expected in fact, that greeted us with blossoming trees and inviting little streets.  

Our first order of business was to find some food as we were all starving.  Being in Italy, rarely are we lacking in our ability to locate some delicious treats.  We are both red wine-loving folk and we have discovered that we generally prefer the house reds at most restaurants.  This restaurant did not disappoint with its house red and had a unique serving size approach.  We ordered essentially a half bottle to share and so they brought us the whole bottle with a line marked where we should stop pouring - a genius way to sell the whole bottle because it is easy to just keep pouring!

My favorite person in the whole world.  I am so blessed to be on this journey of life with him!

Here was one of the many piazzas in Lucca, all charming.  This one happened to have a little market going on and I picked up yet another scarf (I have an ever-growing collection).  

Here is Sullivan pointing to some more nude statues.  

This old church that we happened upon was very cool.

I look like something a wet dog dragged in, but he still wants to kiss on me - I'll take it;)!

Look at the trees growing on top of that tower, so lovely.

Another lovely church we happened upon while walking around Lucca.

Ah, the lovely parking situation...  Italian cars are small, as in very small.  This van was huge.  I was driving and managed to get us into this little spot, but there were a few challenges.  On the passenger side, right outside of the kids' van exit spot, was a lovely pile of dog poo - got 2 out of 3 of them.  After everyone had exited the vehicle, my park job was evaluated and it was recommended that I move it up a bit, so as I am climbing up into this beast (while desperately having to use the bagno myself!), I tripped up into the van, catching myself on the horn of the vehicle, scaring the pee almost out of myself (literally) - good times, good times.  Can you tell that I seem to be a frequent source of humor for my family?!

We ended our lovely first day by having American food and bowling at Camp Darby.  An excellent day of exploring Italy and having some good family fun.  Sorry there aren't very many cherub pictures, they were all busy taking pictures with their own cameras while I was taking these pictures.  I promise they were along and were great sports as we walked at least several miles that day!

Firenze is up on the agenda for the next post, stay tuned!