Carrera, Pisa & Lucca

Tuesday 13^th September 2011

Well we didn’t do the boat trip today but we headed off for some sightseeing instead. Didn’t leave until 9.30am but that doesn’t mean we slept in, we never seem to manage to sleep after 7.00am at the latest!! We didn’t take the toll ways today so that we could check out each town on our way. First stop was Carrera which was a lovely little town. Kim was having trouble with her card in the ATM’s so when we passed a big bank we decided to pop in. We walked inside to see all these seats and was then shown by a local how to take a ticket. Our number was 63 and when we looked up they were only serving number 42, but we thought that might be ok, they’ll get through them quickly. Boy were we wrong, only two tellers and as slow as a wet week. So after about a 45 minute wait we finally got our number called only to find the teller didn’t speak English and wouldn’t help us except to just keep pointing down the road to another bank so we decided not to waste any more time with that and we’d try again another day!! We browsed through some shops and then headed back to the car because we only had parking for 2 hours and had already wasted almost an hour in the bank. We wanted to get a photo of us together so near a fountain were about 6 elderly gentlemen on a park bench. We asked if one would mind taking a photo of us, us speaking English and them in Italian so a little bit of charades came into play, when 5 of them all pointed to this one poor man. I guess he drew the short straw!! He seemed happy enough though cause he led us around to the front of the fountain obviously thinking that would be more picturesque.

Jane & Kim - Fountain in Carrera

Next we passed through Viareggio and I say passed through because it didn’t seem very nice. We also passed through some smaller towns but didn’t stop as we were headed for Pisa which is a larger town and we know how hard it is to find parking even though they park every which way and on corners and basically anywhere you can find a spot. We are a bit more reluctant to do that though so we generally park on the outskirts but try and get as close to the action as we can. As it turned out we found a good spot and when we got out of the car we were given instructions into the main area by an English couple having their lunch on a park bench. Off we went along the river and before we knew it we’d walked out into a big square and there was the leaning tower. Hate using the word but it is very surreal to be standing in front of these famous landmarks we’ve only ever heard or read about. To go into the cathedral I had to put a poncho type thing on to cover my shoulders as I was wearing a singlet. What is it about the church and not showing your shoulders! We stayed there for a little while and after wandering through the streets we decided to head off to Lucca. We got back in the car and set Ruby up to get us there. Off we went and suddenly found ourselves in a huge empty square (piazza) with about 4 or 5 streets running off it. So after driving around it a couple of times we drove down a street under Ruby’s instructions only to find it wasn’t right. Now we were already laughing about driving around the piazza in circles but when we darted back into it again we were in more hysterics. We took another exit only to find ourselves in what seemed like a pedestrian shopping/restaurant area. I managed to do a u turn in the middle of it and we found ourselves back in the piazza. At this point it was starting to remind us of a scene from a movie. I’m sure if the same people were wandering in the piazza each time they would’ve thought what the hell are these two girls doing!!

Jane in Cathedral covering up shoulders!!

Leaning Tower, obviously & Cathedral

Anyway we saw a car, followed it and finally managed to get out and off to Lucca. We arrived there at about 4.45pm and found a car park easily. As we were getting our parking ticket there was also an old couple getting theirs. The woman noticed the time on ours and said ‘Aren’t you staying for the procession?’ to which we replied ‘what procession?’ They explained it to us and said something about candles and flags to which we still weren’t sure but thanked them and went on our way. Lucca is a walled city and as we’d parked just inside the wall it was only a short walk to the centre.  Early on Kim noticed a bank so decided to try her card again. It worked, yay. We wandered the many streets and be mindful that when we say streets they are basically just laneways with barely enough room to fit 2 cars but are good for strolling down. There were lots of shops to browse, which we did and then I noticed on one building face all these candles in candle holders all along the walls and round the doorways and windows. We then looked around and they were everywhere. We kept going when Kim noticed the bank that I needed so all going well so far. We kept going intent on finding another piazza of some significance (they’re everywhere) when we saw a little restaurant that looked good. We decided then that maybe we should come back there for dinner and perhaps stay for the procession as there was a real buzz starting around town. We looked around a bit more and then found the restaurant and sat down for dinner at about 6.00pm which is very early by their standards here. We both had a delicious scallopini with salad and some lemoncino (drink). We waited around for dark and for the procession to start which is once a year, how lucky were we to stumble across this, and is in celebration of Saint Croce I think. They come down with flags that had different places on them and the only one for Australia was Melbourne so we were pretty pleased with that. Kim got so excited she jumped into the procession to take a photo of it. They are followed by priests, nuns, fireman, police, a marching band and allsorts. It was a beautiful sight with all the buildings lit up with candles and we were glad we stayed. Until that was when it came time to leave a little bit before the procession finished as it was getting late…..we weren’t sure after twisting and turning through all the streets which direction the car was in and it was now after 9.00pm and dark. Take note: the whole town was only lit by candles so we couldn’t read the map!!

Melbourne Flag

Candlelights  in Lucca

I thought I had an idea but apparently my inner GPS isn’t working! We asked a few people for help but every street they took us down we ran right back into the procession….this wasn’t looking good. We got to where we thought it would be but alas no car. Kim had the idea to walk the wall and at least then we could see it as all we knew was we parked just inside of the wall. Some more helpful people confirmed this so off we set. Now I have to do some investigation on how long this wall is but I swear we must’ve almost done a whole lap when finally we spotted Cindy (the Citroen). We couldn’t have been happier. We arrived home at 10:45 tired and with sore legs and it was a very long day but we’d had a great day getting out walking the streets and getting amongst it.