It's totally surreal my time in Italy is over. What an amazing road trip it has been, but I'm really looking forward to seeing my Dad in a few hours. I haven't seen him since March. I was just reading the postsecret father's day edition and it made me cry. Since I was 16 and my dad left for New Orleans and started a career doing diaster relief, I don't always get to see him that regularly. Either he's somewhere working a disaster or he's off traveling after having worked like a dog for at least 6 months, but usually a year. There were a few years where it was only twice a year that I saw him. I love all my parents, I really do, despite the lows we've had over the years, but my dad was the one that always let me be me growing up and when he left, I was really angry and took it out on my step mom, ended up moving out, caused tension with the other kids and my mom, and needless to say the end of high school and early college resulted in me being estranged from almost all of my parents and my twin. Sometimes I wonder if that's why things got so serious so quickly when I met my ex-husband, I felt really alone when I met him. Starting anything from a place of vulnerability is a sure fire way for things to implode at one point or another...
Alrighty so let's recap my last two days in Italy, we'll start with the end of Friday night getting into Lucca, the city of walls. Literally the entire city is surrounded by this big wall, so after checking into my guesthouse, I walked into town.
So the woman who helps run the guesthouse told me to check out this place called giulio and fire recommendation. She said even though, it's hot, the soup is worth it, it really was. I also got the Tuscan salad and a half liter of the house wine that got me lit, they make em strong here.
An art museum I believe.
I just thought this was really funny.
Right after I took this photo I hear a little bell ring and it's this kid, maybe 5? On a bike with his parents, telling me to get the fuck out of his way lol and then I watched him ring it as he went along the rest of the road and just seriously enjoyed watching everyone else realize who was behind them.
Well, I may not have gotten to end the night before swimming, but the guesthouse had a tub and I took the most rewarding bath ever. My body is tired, I've put it through a lot and I'm not sure I've ever needed a foot massage more in my life 🤣.
The next day I headed back into town for the morning to check out this place called Felice and get some Cecina which I was told is specific to Lucca. I'm pretty sure it was just fried cheese and while it was yummy I think I felt my arteries getting blocked lol.
From there I headed to Torre Guinigi, which has 230 steps and a bunch of trees growing on top.
Saw this walking back from the tower. Definitely want to look into what she represents.
After the tower I headed back to the guesthouse to grab the car and head to Pisa which was only a half hour away. My lodgings in Pisa were picked to be close to downtown, but also the airport, but it didn't come with parking, so if I was gonna have to pay for parking and you can't bring a bag with you into the Tower of Pisa (very narrow) I was just gonna drive as close to the tower as I could. So you cannot just wait in a line for the tower of Pisa, all tickets are time stamped, you can buy ahead online but it's more expensive. You just show up and ask for the next time slot, I got there a little before 1 and got a ticket for 4:15 so I decided to explore Pisa and found myself in the botanical gardens.
The next bunch are from the botanical garden. There was a cool museum in here with wax figures showing the germination steps for several kinds of plants. In America we use wax to make models of celebrities 🙄.
Finally it was time to walk the 284 steps, apparently this was a day of towers. Walking up it is very surreal, you feel the incline and the effort to walk up the steps switches from hard to easy as you walk up through the spiral. Towers are not great for people with fears of height... definitely saw a good amount on both towers that probably should have just skipped the activity because then their loved ones were busy being concerned for them...but it is a pretty spectacular view from the top and the tilt is crazy. Was a very unreal moment to be sitting on the top of this tower that I've had a little figurine of since I was maybe 8 that my dad's father brought back for me after a trip abroad.
After I descended I headed back to the car and drove to the hotel to check in and decide what to do for the evening. I initially thought I'd walk into the city but then realized the beach was close, a twenty minute drive, so off I went. It feels very fitting I spent my last night in Italy next to a body of water, the Ligurian Sea. The beach is covered in these brilliant white rocks, it really was something to see. Of course I put my feet in the water, it was a little chilly but refreshing nonetheless.
My last sunset in Italy, at least for now.
Before I left the hotel for the beach I had checked for a gas station that was open 24 hours, wanted to fill up the rental car for it's return and not have to worry about it in the morning. Well it was open, but it wouldn't take my cards, non of them, bancnotes only and I had a 50€ on me, but that only took me to 3/4 full! Sooo I scrounged for change and then went into a snack shop and got 15€ and headed back to the pump. It was still slightly less than full 🙄 So I found an ATM but the smallest amount I could take out was 50€ and those gas station machines do not give change. I decided that well damn after all this I'm hungry I'll hopefully find a late night gelateria and get change for this 50€. So in the end I did indeed get to end the night with a mint gelato and I'm pretty damn happy about that. Finally got back to the hotel to pack up and get some shut eye. And now the final leg of the trip is here!
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