Splendid.. Indeed.. ;)

Wow.. two days, not much, by ordinary standards, but - what you can see - where you can be, in such a short time!

After Florence I thought: it can't get much cooler.

I was wrong.

Hanging gardens and everything, forget about the museums, Lucca is a lively, authentic city, not like Dubrovnik an internally dead 'tourism factory' but a historically and culturally impressive place with a whole bunch of churches and even more espresso-drinking, ape- and scooter-riding well-dressed Italians.

We slept a few kilometers outside the city by a river, then parked in front of the city gates. The city walls are impressive, you could do your jogging round on the wall, circle the old town, you don't even notice you're on the city wall.. you feel like you're riding through Graz City Park, because we explored the city on bicycles. :) So we first rode around half the city on the city wall, lay down in weird artistically arranged 'beans' and wondered why it was so hot in Florence yesterday and now it looks so autumnal.

First we had a rather bad breakfast in a cafe, the croissant was.. not a croissant anyway, didn't taste very good, and the English tour group with all the chatting old ladies we eavesdropped on ('splendid, indeed.. hehe.. they really say it ;)') also wondered when the ordered coffee would finally arrive. The ladies also had the dilemma that the excited Italian tour guide waved his umbrella on Piazza de Collosseum... we must continue! To the next church ;) hehe.. So I think half of the ladies left without coffee..

Well, we got ours.. then continued walking through the alleys of Lucca.. you quickly lose track of where you are or which direction you're moving in. Very nice city center with very nice real Italian shops, supermarkets, boutiques... we also spend some money here.. but not too much ;)

Then we climbed the hanging gardens ;) Sounds more spectacular than it is... But still cool. There are trees planted on a tower. There are two towers.. One a bell tower, the other with trees :) The view is spectacular, the ascent is exhausting.. but it's worth it.. Markus instructs me to mention that there are another 99 towers that we didn't climb.. Lucca is the city of 101 churches.

Afterwards, we continued walking.. a glass of wine... for 5 euros... that's more expensive than what we usually pay for a whole bottle at our trusted wine dealer (aka Hofer) and then a delicious pizza with tuna salad..

Finally, we got into the right pizza rhythm. we're currently at about 1 pizza per person per day (just digesting the take-away pizza at Johann) and we consumed the pizza in Lucca on the site of the former Collosseum, Michelle doesn't care, but I find it very exciting to be in a place where you know it was a frequented place several thousand years ago.

Lucca is really worth seeing... we want to come back sometime...

In the evening, we drove on to Lavanto... so that we can look at the 5 Terre or Chinque Terre very early - I can actually be awake at 8 am, really, before all the tourists show up...