This post is a few observations about Italian life. What better place to have lunch than in Piazza dell' Anfiteatro, once a site of an oval shaped Roman amphitheatre.
And always, l'amore is in the air.
And bread, wine, and for some tourists a horse-drawn carriage.
And just a few of the gelato choices in a typical gelateria - it's early in the day, each bin is still full.
Gelato - if you add up all the Starbuck's, McDonald's, Burger King's, and 7-11 stores in the United States you would still not reach the total number of gelato shops in Italy. Okay, that's an exaggeration but, wow, there sure are a lot of gelato shops here.
And a stylish young Italian woman hanging out in the sunshine talking on her cellphone.
I like both images - one shows more sense of place, the other more sense of person.
Sometimes I forget that this is a real town with real people trying to live their lives as we tourists wander about aimlessly clogging their streets and pointing cameras at them. This flower market helped me remember that reality - these are potted flowers, plants, and bulbs - not suitable for tourists to buy and transport home. This is their home and they keep it beautiful, inspiring, and grand.
Before these centuries-old buildings were built, and the restaurants and shops were opened, this space was the scene of a 10,000 seat Roman amphitheatre - imagine that.
Two young friends sitting on a stone bench in a narrow lane enjoy the final warm rays of sunshine on this picture perfect day in Lucca.
As the light faded, we sat at the only outside table at this cafe near one of the portals. And we sat for three hours and watched the best movie in the world - the constant stream of humanity leaving the city and others entering for dinner, drinks, or wandering.
In the gathering darkness, folks sit down to dinner about 8.30pm and later. No senior specials at 5pm like in the United States.
All these Italian essentials (and many more) add up to one thing: "la dolce vita" - the sweet life, the good life.
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