Final Thoughts, Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

My trip to Lucca, a very special place, has come to an end. This was my third visit in four years. (If you want to view the 100+ blog posts, they are at this link). In the image above, a single quiet bicyclist on Via San Croce casts a long shadow in the moments before sundown.

Although I traveled to Venice for a short visit, I otherwise stayed mostly within the walled city of Lucca the entire time using my feet for transportation. This current stay spanned a period through late winter and early spring - temps were mostly in the 40-60 degree F range at this time of year - great weather to be out and about.

Am I a traveler, or tourist, or some mixture of both? A traveler lingers, and listens, and watches and doesn't race from place to place breathless at the end of the day.  A tourist, on the other hand, tends to chase one destination after another, checking off a list of places to go.



One day, I sat in the warm sunshine in Piazza dell'Anfiteatro and watched a little kid learning to walk - he had that half drunk looking wobble, arms outstretched for balance, weaving and tottering along, always about to fall down face-first. He had reached that point in development where he was totally unwilling to grasp mom's hand for help. He was determined to do it on his own. She didn't hover but stayed a short distance behind - not so short as to prevent a fall but close enough to pick him up and dust him off afterwards. Like all of Lucca, it is life unfolding at the natural pace of people on foot.

It is sometimes enough to sit with eyes closed on a bench in a sunny piazza and feel the warmth of the sun and listen to the sounds of speech and life of the different languages and culture on all sides of me. I can enjoy and watch the pace of the world ebb and flow as the sun slowly arcs across the sky. Life driven by the ages old foot-based rhythm and speed. This is Lucca.

I will say though, that after 45 days being here that the language isolation does become tiresome to me. Speaking Italian fluently would be really valuable. I also spent all 45 days with neither a TV nor a cell phone - by choice - like the "good old days."



As a walking man, I walk. In some respects it is like stepping back in time - no phone, no contact, no device, sometimes even no camera, just walking and looking.  Humans have done so for millennia, alone and self-reliant.

This new obsession with being "connected" sometimes can erode self-reliance, a trait that has enabled our survival through the ages. Walking and looking is an active task. After weeks of wandering this city, more and more faces are becoming familiar, more smiles, nods, and looks of recognition, slowly becoming part of a place. A daily life without cars seems a better life suited to the human condition.

Spending 45 days visiting the same place - I like the settling into one place rather than continually discovering more new places. I don't need to try every town or country or restaurant. I prefer to pick one at a time and grow to know it over time rather than flitting from one to another to another. It's just personal style. I'm not a see-Europe-in-ten-days kind of person. A month or so in one place seems a goodly amount of time to suit me. Time to learn some of its ways, and moods, and people, and sights - to reach a state of feeling comfortable and at home in getting around - to walk to everything - my favorite brusketta place, favorite pizza place, favorite vegetable place, favorite chiocoloto fondante gelato place, where to get griglata verdure or pasta pomodoro or risotto carciofi and a dozen other things. It is comforting to reach a point where I can walk with a strong confident pace on the narrow streets because I know where I am and where I am going and how to get there without a map through the maze of warren-like streets.

Lucca is also a province and has its own villages and back roads and suburbs and countryside but its essence and greatest wonder to me in inside the confines of these walls - this 4km/2.5mi circumference world of its own. A world mostly lived on foot. Perhaps this is the essence of all small cities and I am just slow to recognize?



As the bicyclist fades off into the sunset, so to, do I say my final goodbye to Lucca, a very special place in the world. Thanks to you many readers for following along with me on the journey.

Winding Down, Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

This trip to Italy is approaching the end so here are a few more images that didn't make it into earlier blog posts. This fast-moving fresh water stream flows through town along Via del Fosso.



The Piazza dell'Anfiteatro where I have enjoyed perhaps a dozen or more sunny lunches - (and the occasional gelato if truth be told). (Panorama - click to view full width if your device supports that action).



Fancy metal work in a city filled with it.



On the north side of town, part of the wall at left.  The green space buffer surrounds the entire walled city and........



..... is popular for walking or running dogs. The 4km/2.5mi circumference wall was constructed over a one hundred year period beginning in the mid-1500's and is more than 30 feet high.



Outside the north wall, the plane trees along the path have fully leafed out making for a nice shady walk.



A traditional living room in a hundreds-year-old villa. Note the three-piece solid stone frame around the opening and the high ceiling.



Sit with me for a moment in the Cathedral of San Martino in Lucca and imagine hearing the final soaring notes of a 30-strong a capella chorus singing "Danny Boy," fading off into silence beneath the Cathedral's soaring ceiling. Looking up, I was struck by the sheer grandeur of this space which began construction in 1063 A.D. The choral group was visiting from Wales.



This looks like it could have been a music album cover back in the 1970's. Perhaps the band could have been called "The Mad Hatters." In reality, it is the six of us from southeast Massachusetts who spent two weeks together in Lucca taking pictures and enjoying the beauty of this part of Italy.

Stornelli Scordati, Canti D' Altro Tempo (songs of another time), Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

As I wandered along the Piazza San Michele, my ear caught a beautiful sound on the breeze. But when I got there they had just finished a set and were breaking for lunch.



When they returned, I was not disappointed. To hear the wonderful and traditional sounds of 2/3 of the group Stornelli Scordati, busking just off a side street, was a special delight.

I had a feeling about these two musicians, the casual but knowing reverence with which they handled their instruments. I knew they would be good. I waited, I wandered, and I returned when their lunch break was over and they sat down to play. They filled my soul with spirited renditions of local Tuscan traditional songs, protest songs, activist songs, and songs of their youth.

They drew a large crowd of passersby - mostly locals and not tourists. There were men and women and children of multiple generations who paused to listen, or clap along, or tap a toe in rhythm, perhaps remembering some dream of their own youth.

The songs are of the mountains to the north of here - the spring folk festival "Cantar Maggio" celebrates it.  Today, their music filled our souls and perhaps changed some in it's simple joyous rhythms and lyrics. I wish I had an English translation.



They were extraordinarily compelling in their traditional Tuscan style of folk music.



The kids loved them, too, and came flocking to enjoy the sound and their engaging manner.



They get close but not too close.



In my observation, music that attracts small children and old men and women is pure and true and filled with humanity. These are real people making real sounds that evoke emotion - no electricity involved. The tenderness of this young boy on the right towards his sibling also did not go unnoticed.

Perhaps this is part of the essence of travel: to see or hear or feel foreign experiences not possible at one's own home and to be enriched by them. I was enriched today by the music of Stornelli Scordati's songs of another time.

A Beautiful Spring Day, Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

This odd looking centurion normally stands frozen at attention in the Piazza San Michele. If you throw a coin in his collection pot, he will move or pose for a photo.



Here he is on the way back from a break. Always a head-turner to see him out of context.



It is a little early for the lunch crowd at Piazza Napoleone but the trees have filled in in the past couple weeks creating a shady oasis.



Folks start to fill the Piazza dell' Anfiteatro looking for a place to eat lunch.



On the wall looking toward the north of Lucca. It has turned chilly with a fresh breeze from the mountains but, what a spectacular day it makes! (Panorama - click to view full width if your device supports that action).



On the south side of the wall, pedestrians are heading back into the city through one of the tunnel access points.

Although traffic is fairly light at this moment, when the wall is full of people it amazes me that each moment to moment potential collision is averted at the last possible second. Potential collisions exist between walkers, strollers, joggers, runners, skaters, bikers, quad bikers, the occasional car or police vehicle, and thousands of ambling pedestrians all enjoying the same space at the same time. Somehow, it all works together.



It looked like this a month ago at the end of winter. Ah, Lucca, what a special place you are.

The Nottolini Aqueduct, Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

Back in Lucca after our visit to Venice and to shake some of the city dust and cobwebs out, we headed south of Lucca on foot to enjoy a walk along the Nottolini Aqueduct.

Built in the 1800's by Lorenzo Nottolini, it brought water from the mountains near Pisa to the city of Lucca. Alas, during major highway construction during the Mussolini era, the aqueduct was shut down and split in the middle to make way for the new multi-lane highway that connects Pisa to Florence. (Panorama - click to view in full width if your device supports that action).



Another view of the aqueduct from an adjacent stand of trees. (Panorama - click to view in full width if your device supports that action).

Lorenzo Nottolini was also known for his efforts at the urban rehabilitation of the Piazza dell' Anfiteatro inside the city of Lucca as well as other projects.



It was a spectacularly beautiful walk but the dark clouds gathering on our return started looking like showers were imminent. The image above is on the south side of the city wall.



People were carrying umbrellas and if you didn't have one, there was someone nearby always ready to sell you one for a few euro.



Many folks simply sat under restaurant umbrellas to pass the time and wait out any shower.



As always, the rain stopped, the puddles formed, and photographers were seen aiming low to get reflection images. Even wet, Lucca is beautiful.

Arrivederci Venezia! Part 5 of 5, Venice, Veneto, Italy

I find that I am liking the timelessness of black and white images of Venice. This one could have been made last week or last century (except for the small speedboat in the distant background).



Like sardines in the can, or riders on a subway at rush hour, everyone packs onto the vaporettos for transport along the Grand Canal.



Some still take the slow boats.



This red boat is a postal package delivery service.



A view from onboard the vaporetto heading back to meet our ride back to Lucca. Note the yellow boat at right - it is the delivery service DHL.



A gondola glides by the vaporetto I am riding.



And another.



Considering the chaos of thousands of people pouring into Venice daily whether by car, bus, train, boat, ship, or plane, Venice's traffic officers keep the throngs moving in spite of the challenges at the main arrival point.

Some final thoughts: It is difficult to be a walking man in Venice. There are just too many people and crowds clogging the narrow arteries - it is difficult to keep up a consistent walking pace like when in Lucca

I expect that I was imagining it but, it sometimes felt like the earth or buildings were shifting, swaying underfoot. Whether stone, wood, stair, bridge, floor, store, house - I imagine I feel the slight shifts of the ground beneath my feet. Knowing this city was built upon the millions of trees cut for the purpose and driven into the ground, it predisposes me to think that way.

This whole amazing place is balancing on sticks - for centuries so far. So, the city is probably not moving as I imagine it. I must just have some old age vertigo and/or an overactive imagination. I did note that floors slope badly in odd ways whether inside stores, or houses, or on sidewalks, or footbridges. That said, I am surprised that doors seemed to open and close with such ease.

Arrivederci Venezia, it was great to visit you!

Amazing at Every Turn, Part 4 of 5, Venice, Veneto, Italy

There seems to be more musically sophisticated buskers in Venice - classical music to enrich the soul.



Here's another form of busking. Put some coins in the box to take a picture, or, pose with them for a picture. Either way, put money in the box.



A warm sunny wharf near the Rialto Bridge is just perfect for a pair of tourists to rest and recharge their batteries.



Gondolas at dock, the Rialto Bridge in the background.

Ready for passengers.



We had a great lunch along this wharf just below the Rialto Bridge. Even though most/all customers were tourists, the standards for food quality were high. Protecting the Italian reputation for quality food was evident everywhere.

Blue and green pilings and color coordinated clothing.



Along the Grand Canal.



Ditto.



This "grocery store" is on a boat docked along a side canal. Customers stand beside it on the sidewalk and the greengrocer passes over what the shopper can't reach from the bins.



A department store just north of the Rialto Bridge, Fondaco dei Tedeschi, has a rooftop deck that visitors are sometimes permitted to access. This view is looking northward up the Grand Canal......



.....and this one looking southward at the Venice skyline (with some post-processing enhancements added).