Lucca Sunday 29 May

Today is Sunday, and we decided to take it quietly around Lucca and “recharge our batteries” a little. When originally planning our itinerary, I considered the possibility of staying in Florence a couple of days longer and doing Lucca as a day-trip, but in fact because the hotel here is comfortable and Lucca is a pretty relaxed town, the way we are doing things appears to be working out quite well (EDIT - Sue points out that it was she who said we had to stay at Lucca!). Anyway, the hotel provided a lovely buffet breakfast with all the usual things but also including organic options, Tuscan chocolate cake and baked apple. Of course, we couldn't pass by the chocolate cake, but Sue has decided to give up on the great pizzas and pasta and to revert to healthy salads at other meals. She is even thinking of moderating her intake of red wine!

In relation to the bikes that are everywhere, I decided that if you can't beat them, you may as well join them. I was pleased to find that my ability to ride a bike (not having ridden one for so many years) was still there, and since everyone in Lucca seems to ride, including many gentlemen of “mature” years, I was in good company. I circumnavigated the ramparts, explored a number of the narrow streets and then did sections of the ramparts in the other direction.

The above was written late morning. We then decided to have a bite of lunch and check out some of the churches, which we did (including San Michele in Foro and San Pieto Somaldi – both quite plain churches but with quite stunning art works). We also had a look at the so-called ampitheatre (Antifeatro Romano – a bit disappointing). But our attention was caught by a garden that we passed, and we discovered that today was open gardens day in Lucca. Six historic and quite different private gardens were open for inspection. A couple of these were close by, so we visited them. Both of these were amazing oasis's of green and order in private courtyards, with histories extending over centuries. One of them was said to have some unusual plants, which I think was intended to refer to the callistomon and grevilleas! One thing led to another, and before the afternoon was over we had visited all six gardens, in the course of which we walked for kilometres around town. We felt privileged to have had the opportunity to see a side of Lucca that we hadn't appreciated existed, even though it meant our “recharge” day didn't turn out quite as we planned.

For dinner, we again sought out a restaurant with some local dishes and had another nice meal.

Tomorrow we head to Cinque Terre, staying at Levanto. We considered various options to get there, but rejected the bus then train option in favour of the all-train option. I'm not certain about the availability of internet at Levanto, so if there is silence for a few days, I'll resume posting when we get to Berlin.