A couple more nights in Lucca.

After Jeanne caught her plane for home, we came back to Lucca -- just and hour or so away -- for a casual pizza night with Gabriella and Vivianna.  When we arrived, it had blossomed into another fairly large gathering: Gabriella and Pietro, Vivianna, Manuella and Mario -- and Luanna, dressed to the nines!  We suppose now that we are liked rather than just tolerated as visiting relatives, and it's a good feeling.

We got such a good deal at the Villa Ilaria, and feel so comforted to be back in Lucca and away from the throngs of tourists in Florence, we decided to stay an extra night.  Just two days to drive to Napoli to meet up with R. & V. Casali, but things will slow down again once we are there.  I am anxious to see if they have snow globes of Pompeii.

Fiesole.

Back at Fiesole, we have a very good meal at a recommended restaurant.  The staff is not quite charming, but they're very busy.

The next morning, at our hotel on the hill, the rain has begun in earnest.  No one is inclined to go to the big town in a downpour, and we instead check out the Etruscan / Roman ruins in Fiesole, and visit the associated museum.  The excavated amphitheatre, baths, and temple ruins appear to do double duty as community concert venue and outdoor gallery, and are festooned with many modern sculptures by the same artist.  They're nicely done, various torsos, heads, and hands artfully distressed, pierced, disarticulated, and with vaguely homosexual overtones.  We admire them but don't quite understand why they're here.

 The expensive museum tickets  (10 euros a head)  and a mediocre lunch with rude service (pasta, glass of wine and coffee costing each of us about 17 euros) leaves us thinking that this little town on the hill, formerly a "secret" refuge for savvy travelers, has now taken it's place as a full partner in the tourist trade of Florence.


Photos: The Roman amphitheatre, sporting a giant metal hand at its focus (just because); A gauntlet of hands leading a large head (what better to relate to an excavated bath complex); Two figures, two heads, that makes sense (point of view chosen to retain "kid-friendly" rating).

Florence / Firenze

We backtrack to Florence, where we'll be staying a couple of nights in anticipation of Jeanne's flight out of Vespucci airport on Monday.  Rain is threatening, so we take the bus down form our hotel in Fiesole to take a walk around.  Despite it's being late October, the historical center of town is still crowded with tourists, throngs around the Duomo, shopping on Via Roma, a packed mass shuffling across the Ponte Vecchio.  A passing American woman squarks in a loud voice "...and I simply MUST have my roasted chestnuts before we go..!."  It's a bit overwhelming.  We split up for a while, then meet up on the steps of the church in Piazza Santa Croce, which is somewhat less crowded but incongruously filled a collection of "bounce house" type amusements with their growling generator-inflators.

Monticiello.

Make a day trip to nearby Monticiello, a smaller but equally groomed hilltop town.  We arrive at pausa, and have pranzo at the only eatery we can find open, a place at the main city gate.  At least hall the guests seem to be speaking English, and it's a bit pricey, but the food is excellent.  Back in Pienza by evening, and Nancy and Jeanne take in another restaurant meal.  I go f or a nap and am content with a warmed panino from the bar, and late gelato.  The evening passegiata provides another opportunity for photos.  I'm getting better at shooting from the waist, and other contrivances, and few exposures turn out to have people looking into my lens with a frown.

Leaving Lucca, for now. Pienza.

We turn in our "grandma" bikes, pack up and are on our way to Pienza by 11am.  About 3 hours later we are there, returning to the same hotel as on our first visit to the area several years ago.  It's still a charming place, making a bit of money off tourism, but discreetly.  In the evening all the souvenirs and small signs in English are behind heavy wooden doors, and the town becomes again a fairly normal hill-town, albeit an extraordinarily tidy one.

Preparing to leave, Dinner with Franchesca.

Some last errands around town, as we will give up our apartment tomorrow.  Our flat had been reserved for the coming weekend far in advance, on account of the comic book convention coming to town.  Event tents have been erected everywhere: in fields surrounding the walls, on top of the walls, in the courtyards of the government buildings, and in the main piazzas -- Napoleone, San Michele, even in front of the Duomo.  I should be upset that so many landmarks were obscured for the purposes of photography, but in all cases I had covered them in previous visits.

In the afternoon Nancy and I go for a last visit at Luanna's house, stay a hour and half chatting and saying goodbyes.  Jeanne goes to Pisa with Vivienne and sees --- oh, you know.  Giacomo goes along to keep a doctor's appointment in the area, there's a little wait, and they're don't get back until after dark.

In the evening --they're becoming quite cool now -- we walk around the block for dinner at Franchesca's house.  It's a wonderful evening, Gianni's cooking is in top form, and Nancy and I are following the conversation nicely and contributing significantly.


Photos: Nancy and I with Franchesca and Gianni at their house; young Giacomo comes by our apartment to say goodbye; Jeanne in Piazza Anfiteatro with some new purchases.

Shopping, Dinner with Marco, Letizia and families.

Jeanne and Nancy are up early to spend most of the day in Pietrasanta with Vivienne, shopping.  I'm out later in the morning on one of the rented "grandma" bikes, taking photos around town, then later out on the good road bike for one last outing before returning it to the shop -- at 25 euro per day, I can't keep it forever.

 In the evening we meet cousin Marco and family, and cousin Letizia and family, at a restaurant outside the walls.  The food is typical dishes of the area, but comes very slowly to the table and we're there until 11:30 or so, much later than anyone had planned.  Marco insists on picking up the check, saying with a wink that's it to make up for our having to eat in the presence of such bad paintings.  It's a weekday, and our hosts are doing this after a full day of work... everyone leaves looking tired, but it was a nice visit.