"The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again." -- George Miller
Day 8
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Lucca to Levanto |
From Volterra we hop back on the bus and head to Levanto and the Cinque Terre, first stopping at the charming walled city of Lucca. Before arriving in Lucca we were able to glimpse the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Carrara marble mines from the bus window. Lucca is one of the few Italian cities that retained its entire perimeter wall. So well built and fortified the wall was never challenged by
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invaders. I now know where I want to be during the zombie Apocalypse. It was widened and improved over the centuries and now serves as a wonderful pedestrian and bicycle pathway. David and I decided to walk its three mile tree lined perimeter under beautiful blue skies after first enjoying the tasty local cecina, a pizza-like treat made from garbanzo beans.
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Did you know? Lucca annually hosts the Lucca Comic and Games festival, the largest in Italy, and similar to San Diego's own Comic Con. I wonder if the tickets are any easier to obtain.
Levanto
As the evening wore on and the wine flowed freely, the singing began. Caterina swore to us that the chef and hotel proprietor loved the singing, but we noticed he quietly slipped away once the song choices changed from the classic Dean Martin and Italian ballads, to the Broadway show tunes, the Beatles, and finally the college fight songs. It was perhaps the best group dinner of the trip, despite the singing.
"When the moon hits the sky like a bigga pizza pie, that's amore".---Harry Warren & Jack Brooks, sung by
Dean Martin and the Rick Steves Ensemble. |
Along the Way:
We stopped at a roadside comfort station (bathroom) near Pisa that had seven toilets and twenty six sinks. Here's my buddy Josie, trying to decide which sink to use.
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A Blast from the Past
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In Hindsight: We wish we had gotten the nerve to sing in front of everyone. We obviously hadn't had enough wine. We may never have another opportunity to perform before well fed, slightly tipsy fellow travelers in Italy. The expectations were so low what harm would it have done?