We are now back in Livorno, which is the port city for Florence and Pisa. REALLY a long time ago Livorno was created as Florence, which was a very populous city, needed a port. Now, with trucking and other way of getting goods like by air, it is not as important to them, but it is still a very important port for many of the smaller cities that surround the area. Today, we are taking a late booked Excursion to Lucca. I cannot remember who told me that if we could see Lucca we should. Perhaps it was Leah. Lucca is a completely walled city just north of Livorno. It was a very rich city during the fudal times and instead of being attacked, just paid off the people who wanted to fight it! Now people who live in Lucca are called “Inside” people and people who live outside of the walls are called “Outside” people or “Foreigners” as our tour guide was called. Lucca used to have 100 churches which many are gone, however a few beautiful ones exist still. Some were demolished due to royalty wanting to build a palace and some naturally fell down. If you live in Lucca you are only allowed to have one car and it is very hard to park within the city. Most residents use bicyles – we saw a LOT of people on bicycles and not nice new ones – ratty ones as they are the number one thing that is stolen in the city! Often people pay more for their bike lock than for their bike. So the bus dropped us off outside of Lucca and we walked into the city. It was incredibly hot (about 30 degrees) this day and being in the sun between buildings without a lot of shade was pretty hard walking around. Like once when on the Canadian Prairies with my sister and parents when my mother wanted to visit yet another museum yet it was very hot, when we found out it was air conditioned and we almost ran into it, this was the case for the cathedral we visited – it was LOVELY inside! I personally was impressed with the accessibility of Lucca – the cathedral was ramped – all parts of it! Also many stores were ramped too. I now have a policy of pretty well only going into stores that have ramps and letting other stores see that I will patronize them and not theirs. Anyways, we walked for about 2 hours and I then hit the wall of heat. With about 15 minutes left in the tour I told the tour guide (as we were walking farther away from the meeting point for later one) that I needed to bow out of the tour and get a cold drink. So that is what Andrew and I did and while he had a beer I had my standard Coke Zero. Which brings me to a good point. Andrew learned not to tell me to get him a beer – there were about 20 in the fridge and I had to pick one for him! So he got the one with the purple label – how was I to choose? I do not drink beer! So we people watched, someone bought some hair goodies and a dress and we met up with the tour at the appointed time for the bus trip back to Livorno. Once back at Livorno, Andrew decided to rest and I took the ship’s bus into town – it was my last chance to get a shirt from Italy which I really wanted and had not paid attention earlier in our trip on getting one. The bus driver and I (I was the only one on the bus) ran into a demonstration so the 10 minute bus drive turned into 30 minutes! I got to see more of downtown than I wanted to however we finally made it to the drop off spot. Out I got and started walking around – there were curb cuts and ramps everywhere! I was impressed! However an Italy shirt was eluding me! I found a fridge magnet but no shirt… The lady at the HAL stop told me that the next bus would be there at 6pm so I was back in time however the bus was late and I think on Italian time. So we left at 6:20pm and we got back to the ship 20 minutes later! By the time I got to our room in the pointy part of the ship Andrew was a bit concerned as dinner normally is at 7pm. However we were dining in Canteletto tonight at 7:30pm so there was plenty of time for me to get ready… Off we went to the restaurant and had a wonderful meal in this specialty dining which was part of our cruise package! Even caught a sunset!
