Lucca: It's Me & You Today

The next morning I awoke to an empty room and a clear sky. Ahh, considerate roommates and good weather – it’s gonna be a good day.

First order of business was to pick out “my” café. Since I had done some scouting for an internet café the day before, I already had a good idea of where I wanted to go. There was a sweet little mom & pop bar near the hostel I had liked the feel of, despite not using their internet. So I went right in and ordered “my usual.” Oh and did I ever pick the right place this time around. Their brioches were so…dense with crème, ahhhh! They were simply heavy with deliciousness. I could feel the bottom sagging under the weight of the heavenly crème hiding in there. Definitely the best I’ve found yet. Yup, it’s going to be a good day, alright.

As I consulted Rick on my activities for the day, I decided to climb a couple of the towers in town (there was a combo-ticket deal and I was in a stairs kind of mood), to check out what used to be a Roman amphitheatre (I just can’t get over how cool those are), and to bike the ramparts. In medieval times, Lucca was heavily invested in keeping other city-states out, so they fortified their city by putting walls up to completely surround themselves. The walls still stand today and are wide and flat and perfect for biking. Rick says you can rent a bike by the hour and easily do two laps in about 40 minutes. I could hardly wait!

The amphitheatre was first on the list (as it was the closest) and it was also my briefest stop. As it turned out, it was only a ghost of the old amphitheatre – the town had kept the basic shape and construction of the circumference of the theatre, but it had been transformed into several cute little shops along the perimeter and a piazza in the center. You could even still see parts of the original walls in the existing structure; it was an interesting juxtaposition of the old and the new, to say the least.

Next up were the towers. As expected, both afforded excellent views of the city and it was difficult to stop taking pictures. However, soon after my summit of the first tower, the rain decided to make a repeat appearance. So before it got out of hand, I scurried to the second tower (this one a clock tower to boot!) to enjoy the view and make use of my ticket. I waited around to see the “mighty clock” click into action, but after 15 minutes, nothing happened, so I gave up. And at that point I could see that the rain was turning into more than just a sprinkle.

So with the weather turning, I wasn’t really in the mood to go hunting for a restaurant – especially since all I really wanted was soup (it was really a “rainy day special*” kind of day, but I didn’t think I’d be able to find that, so soup was a good second choice). I dashed back to the hostel for a better jacket and the guy at the desk lent me his umbrella and suggested I try what turned out to be “my café” to find soup. I decided to grab my computer while I was at it and simply hunker down for a while and hopefully ride out the weather.

Unfortunately the weather showed no signs of letting up whatsoever, so it looked like biking was going to have to wait until tomorrow. The rest of my day was very low-key (eating soup, blogging, reading, napping) and I actually quite enjoyed the down time. Despite the rain, I did venture out to a Rick recommended trattoria for dinner and ordered the meat ravioli – an excellent decision. They were absolutely fantastic. So good, in fact, I was inspired to order the dessert of the day. However, as I have mentioned before, it turned out to be a cake-y cookie thing and left something to be desired. Oh well – nothing ventured, nothing gained I guess.

*A rainy day special is tomato soup heated slowly with an egg floating in its midst, until the egg is soft-boiled and the soup is hot paired with an ultimate grilled cheese sandwich (imagine a regular grilled cheese sandwich, except replace the mayo with cream cheese and then add a dash of garlic salt). This marriage of deliciousness evolved out of the many years Becky and I were roommates (and hunkered down together on rainy days). Ever since then, I’ve considered it my mission to teach the world about this fantastic little crappy weather lunch menu item. Consider yourselves learned.