So now, we go to Lucca. Yes, I spent the night in Pisa. The place I booked was very close to the train station, which made for an easy getaway. I arrived around 9:30 at night, but I was not able to get into my apartment until 10:30. Why, you ask? Because, though my Airbnb host sent me a multi-page, over-the-top set of check-in instructions, and I followed them dutifully, he then decided to change the instructions last minute. I told him I would arrive at 9:30, and he sent the new instructions at 9:33. I did not receive these instructions, though, because my data had stopped working earlier in the day. Imagine my frustration and confusion as I stood ringing his doorbell for half an hour before someone else let me into the building. I then climbed five flights of stairs to knock on his door and ring the actual doorbell on his apartment, still to no avail.

On some spur of luck, sitting on my host’s apartment staircase in defeat and trying to figure out how to find another place to stay, I was able to connect to fifteen minutes of free WiFi and see his new, completely different set of instructions. Upon following these, I was brought to an apartment that looked nothing like the Airbnb pictures. It was clearly a completely different place. The room was larger and had an extra bed, and the room, the kitchen, and the bathroom were all completely different looking and much more dilapidated compared to the listing. Very confusing. Luckily they still had all the same amenities, including wifi and a washing machine. (The latter was crucial, seeing as I was on my second to last pair of undies.)

After an exhausting night, I decided I would take the next day off. I hadn’t had a day off all month. One of the only plus sides of this new, strange apartment was that it had a bathtub, and the listed apartment did not. Too tired to do my laundry, I told myself I would use the next day to sleep in as late as I wished, do some laundry, take a bath, blog, and get sucked deeper into my addictive book.This sounded like a brilliant plan, even though it meant I would not have time to see Lucca, a city highly recommended by my Dutch friend, Bart. But, there would be other times for other cities.I slept until one in the afternoon. It was heavenly. And I would have slept longer, honestly, but I decided to check on the status of the world and the weather and (this is where it gets tricky) train times and ticket prices to Lucca.

It was slated to be a beautiful day, and tickets to Lucca were about four dollars in one direction – practically the cost of a bus ticket! The train was only half an hour long and ran every thirty minutes. Ugh. I’m sure you can see where this is going.

In my defense, upon further inspection of the bathtub in the daylight (the lights were all broken in the bathroom, so I’d had to pee by flashlight the previous night), I found that it was not necessarily a bathtub I wanted spending extended amounts of time in contact with my naked body. So the bath was out. And if I only did laundry and lazed around all day, I knew I would feel like I was missing out on a beautiful city that was just so close by. Another option was to try to see Lucca in the morning before my flight and to see Pisa that day, but for some reason, rushing to a train sounded more motivating than walking out the door to explore the city right at my feet. So, I shoved my things in the laundry machine, praying it would do the trick, and rushed out the door.

I missed the first train by literally ten seconds. I reached the platform as its whistle blew and it came to a rolling start. Luckily, though, my favorite part of the Italian rail system is that your ticket is valid for any train to the same station within four hours of the scheduled departure time. This allows for a lot of fluidity and tardiness, which is exactly my style. I boarded the next train and waited half an hour for it to take off on a beautiful countryside journey.

I found another fun toilet at the Lucca train station.

It really was a very nice day; not a cloud in the sky.

I made it to the Duomo and discovered the problem with getting such a late start: everything was closing or already closed. The cathedral was still open, but the tower was not, and I slowly discovered throughout the afternoon that the same was true for most other places.

Still, it was a lovely little city, and it was nice to walk around in the quiet sunshine.

Below is the most famous tower in all of Lucca, Torre Giunigi. It is famous because it has a little tree park on top! Kind of looks like a Chia Pet from this angle.

Also found some fun street art. I don’t know if you recall the street art I found in Florence that was a worn down painting of Klimt’s “The Kiss,” but the lovers were wearing snorkeling goggles. This is kind of the next natural stage from that, I suppose.

I’ll admit it. I was immensely disappointed in myself for missing all of the towers. If I had known the closing times, I could have rushed to the one open latest, but this was simply not the case. Luckily, as all wise men know, there is a cure to such disappointments.

I guess a nickname for Lucca is The City of 100 Churches because there are soooo many of these guys littered throughout the streets. I found many of them, though definitely not close to 100. I think the first one below was my favorite from the outside.

There were also SO MANY TOWERS, as you can see. I so badly wanted to climb them all! The streets are really narrow in Lucca, and the buildings are comparatively tall, so it was impossible to see anything beyond the walls of the street I was walking on, and then BAM! A tower would appear right in front of me. Lizzy Heaven, seriously.

For dinner, I had some delightful pesto/walnut ravioli and wine. The wine was tasty, and so was the ravioli, once I realized the crunchy things were actually supposed to be in there.

Lucca was very pretty by night, as well, and amazingly even more quiet.

Another attraction that was closed (for all of February, in fact) was a palace and garden complex. However, Lucca is an old walled city, and the walls still remain intact. The only way to enter the city is through various gates around the perimeter. The walls are now somewhat of a looped park, and from up here, I was able to peer into the gardens! Can you see the little marble statues?

Since I was up here already, and I didn’t have a return ticket purchased yet, I decided to make my way back to the station via the walls. This way, I wouldn’t have to navigate the twisting city streets with my paper map in the dark. The path was practically flooded with joggers. I think I saw more joggers up here than pedestrians down in the city.

I eventually wound my way all the way back to the gate by the train station. Check out these midaeval-style doors and drop-down spikey gates.

And then I missed a train, again, by about twenty seconds. Ugh, can’t win. And somehow, this was the one time in the whole evening where the next train was an hour away instead of thirty minutes. I settled in with a vending machine cappuccino to read, write, and wait it out. I just can’t get tired of these things.

I made it back to my weird little room in Pisa, hung up my clean laundry, and went to sleep.

My room did actually have a nice view (pictures from the next morning).

Now, here’s where things get even crazier. I was driving myself bonkers with the fact that I hadn’t gotten to climb any of the towers in Lucca, so I devised a plan to wake up early, check out, go back to Lucca, climb a tower or two, zoom back to Pisa, see the leaning tower and anything else this little city could offer me in a couple hours, and be at the airport by three. A daunting task, I know. And these silly Lucca trains were out to get me again! I missed my first one by a minute, but luckily the next came in fifteen. The trouble was that to come back to Pisa, my best options were 10:42 or 12:42. There were none in between, for some crazy reason! The early train would only give me about an hour in Lucca, but the late train would give me less than two hours in Pisa, and the leaning tower is a long walk from the train station. Since I’d already spent the afternoon in Lucca the day before, I told myself that Pisa deserved a little love, too, and I booked the earlier train back. A whirlwind morning, let me tell you.

When I landed in Lucca, I had a mission. Straight to Torre Giunigi! (With some photo ops along the way, of course.)

When I got to the tower, however, there was a sign on the door saying, “I’ll be right back. Please wait here,” and the door was closed. Ugh. I also realized I was out of cash, so I used this opportunity to sprint around the city in search of an ATM.

When I got back, thankfully, the door was open again. I practically ran up the steps. Not the most relaxing tower visit, I’ll admit it.

But it was worth it! Just like it always is.

I counted at least fifteen bell towers within the city walls. Craziness.

Even though it was nice and shady up here, I was still sweating from my run up the steps.

But far too quickly, it was time to head back down if I wanted to catch my train.

So here’s the silly thing: as fun as climbing Torre Giunigi was, I really wanted to climb ANOTHER one so that I could see the iconic view of the trees, the tower, and the empty space in between. I walked quickly back to the city walls, but when I got to the Duomo, I twiddled my thumbs trying to decide if I should just stay and climb its bell tower.

An hour and a half in Pisa did not sound fair, and though everyone had told me there was nothing in Pisa except the tower, experience has taught me that a city always has more to offer than the one building it’s famous for. So, I (sort of) devised a plan. I twiddled my thumbs for so long at the Duomo (really, this was only a few minutes, but they were crucial minutes well past ten), that by the time I decided to go to the train station, I was cutting it really, really close. Like, I had to fast walk, and when I hit the stairs of the city walls, I ran down them. It was 10:35. Luckily, I had purchased my return ticket already, since both times I had missed the train the day before could have been avoided if I hadn’t had to buy my ticket at the station.

As I was running down through a tunnel in the walls, sweaty, holding my coat, and in a really stressed and frustrated mood, a group of three Italian teenage boys was walking up the other direction. The one in front said, “BELLaaaaa….” as I passed, and the other two turned to look my way.

Probably the single best moment of the trip so far. Bahahahaha. It certainly put me in a better mood.

After that fulfilling incident, I was a little more okay with boarding this train, so I kicked it up a little and actually stepped on as the conductor blew her whistle. Talk about timing.

Half an hour later, my train rolled into Pisa, but we’ll leave off here for now.

Ciao/ best wishes

-Lizzy-wa