A Pound of Flesh: Lucca + Pisa

Oops. Before Florence we stayed in Lucca, from where we day-tripped to Pisa. But I did do the tower post, so I'll just quickly load up a few more pics here...

Lucca, near Pisa, is a town with a Roman street plan and a fully intact city wall (from the time of the Renaissance).

At passagiating hour the pathway around the rampart, on a rise ringing the old city, was packed with families, friends, and couples walking handsome dogs.

Passagiating on the ramparts.

Some folks say, you haven't really been to a place until you've swum there, and they don't mean in a swimming pool. The other day I read in a guidebook that some folks say that you haven't been to Lucca until you've eaten some kind of special local bread made with raisins and anise. I wasn't sold on the bread, but I do like the idea, particularly in these colder months, of substituting swimming for eating as a way of really being in a place.

On our first night in Lucca we ate at a hip wee trattoria, sharing the likely less traditional dish of beef tartar loaded with capers, thyme, and red onion and topped (supposedly anyway) with quails eggs, as well as a sausage and pumpkin risotto, and pappardelle with wild boar ragu. Yum.

Detail of cathedral facade.

A different, but similar, church facade.

The medieval tower with trees on top.

And back to the ramparts.

Lucca was our first stop in Tuscany, and we liked it. Small, mostly pedestrian, and full of Christmas markets and large scale nativity scenes. (They love nativity scenes in this country, every church has one, or more, often set up outside in the piazza.)

Pisa, around and including the tower.