Day Trip: Lucca October 25th, 2011
This was the first day trip we took in which it was rainy and gloomy. We began our trip at this old villa, Villa Reale de Marlia... but it wasn’t the villa we were looking at this time... it was the gardens around the villa which are some of the most famous in Italy. The gardens were full of secret passageways and long, impressive corridors of trees. More impressive than anything though was how beautiful it was. It wasn’t grand, but had a more romantic feel. Unfortunately it was raining, so it was not as enjoyable as it could have been, but it was beautiful none the less. After visiting the garden, we went into Lucca for lunch where I once again got some delicious Italian(or maybe European? Not sure which) hot chocolate! After lunch we visited the two main churches in the town, took a look at some of their more prominent piazzas, and we climbed one tower of many to get an aerial view of the town and the surrounding mountains. At the top of the tower, I caught myself taking this view for granted. I am getting used to visiting these small towns on our day trips and they begin to blend together, however each one has its own unique charm. On the way home (we were 2 hours south of Genoa), we ran into a bit of rain, but that was the least of our problems. Apparently it had been pouring in the La Spezia region (about an hour south of Genoa), and the road we needed to take had flooded. We stopped to find an alternate route back to the villa which ended up taking us 4 extra hours. We got back to the villa at 11pm that night instead of 7pm when we were supposed to arrive! The next day we saw news articles of the storm and it was worse than we realized. The little Cinque Terre towns were terribly flooded in the storm and the detour we took to get home closed 20 minutes after we took it due to more flooding. Good thing we went when we did otherwise we would have had to go to Florence.
This was the first day trip we took in which it was rainy and gloomy. We began our trip at this old villa, Villa Reale de Marlia... but it wasn’t the villa we were looking at this time... it was the gardens around the villa which are some of the most famous in Italy. The gardens were full of secret passageways and long, impressive corridors of trees. More impressive than anything though was how beautiful it was. It wasn’t grand, but had a more romantic feel. Unfortunately it was raining, so it was not as enjoyable as it could have been, but it was beautiful none the less. After visiting the garden, we went into Lucca for lunch where I once again got some delicious Italian(or maybe European? Not sure which) hot chocolate! After lunch we visited the two main churches in the town, took a look at some of their more prominent piazzas, and we climbed one tower of many to get an aerial view of the town and the surrounding mountains. At the top of the tower, I caught myself taking this view for granted. I am getting used to visiting these small towns on our day trips and they begin to blend together, however each one has its own unique charm. On the way home (we were 2 hours south of Genoa), we ran into a bit of rain, but that was the least of our problems. Apparently it had been pouring in the La Spezia region (about an hour south of Genoa), and the road we needed to take had flooded. We stopped to find an alternate route back to the villa which ended up taking us 4 extra hours. We got back to the villa at 11pm that night instead of 7pm when we were supposed to arrive! The next day we saw news articles of the storm and it was worse than we realized. The little Cinque Terre towns were terribly flooded in the storm and the detour we took to get home closed 20 minutes after we took it due to more flooding. Good thing we went when we did otherwise we would have had to go to Florence.
villa from the garden
the town of Lucca from a tower
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