No Pizza, No Pasta, No Stress, Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

That's what the little sign says in the window of Da Ciacco in Piazza Napoleone. It's an unusual statement since nearly EVERYONE in the restaurant business here serves pizza and/or pasta. Notwithstanding the menu absences, we had one of the best lunch and people-watching sessions in the city. It is a bold position for a restaurateur in this city to not offer pizza and/or pasta!



No one seemed disappointed without pizza/pasta.....



.....anyway, pizza/pasta was available at the restaurant next door......



....and also up the street about 50 meters......



....and in all the restaurants over in Piazza dell' Anfiteatro, too. On any given day, it's hard to tell whether the sunny tables or shady tables are going to fill up first.



With a spring chill still sometimes in the air, most folks are seeking the sunny tables - us included.



For hundreds of years, neighborhood folks have come to this fountain in Piazza del Salvatore to fill their water bottles to take home for cooking and drinking. They are still doing it. I have heard anecdotally that some still use the marble tub for a weekly bath but, I'm not sure I believe that. It might have been one of those things to tell a gullible tourist - me.



Here's the spout to fill the tub.



Elsewhere in town, because of the narrow streets, many/most deliveries are completed by men using hand trucks to carry the heavier items from place to place. This was one of the more unusual works of art being rolled through the street. (A fuller version is below).



Over on Via del Fosso, another public fountain stands ready. (And yes, I drink from both fountains and any others I encounter in Lucca. Nothing like bending and turning my head sideways in the warm Tuscan sunshine and having the water run both in my mouth and down the side of my face and neck at the same time).



The wisteria has reached its peak adorning this sun baked wall in Piazza Antelminelli.



Definitely an unusual artwork moving through town.

And a quirky way to end my 2000th published blog post since I began in 2010. Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of readers who have popped in from time to time to join me and share a moment of beauty and wonder in our world.