October 17th, Florence to Lucca, By Train

This morning, just like magic and prior to our rising, our efficient German scout troupe vanished...tents struck and packed away like clockwork. We were impressed. We struck down our tent and checked out, only to find that the Italian trains and buses were on strike (so we were told). We were planning to take the bus to the train station, but had to walk. En route, however, we saw that indeed some buses were running, but otherwise all was strangely quiet on the streets. We thought it must be a notorious Italian work slowdown. We walked the 3k to the station and got a train ticket to Lucca without a problem. In fact, it was awfully quiet at the train station, perhaps because many people couldn't access by bus. The ride only took about 1.5 hours.

In Lucca, we headed to the tourist office and we found a very charming affitacamere (room for rent) right near but inside its medieval walls. It had a kitchenette and shared bathroom. We loved it and our brains starting to get ideas about the next step in this journey. After we walked around and on top of the city walls, our hearts were won. It is a clean city, with small canals flowing, spring oozing around twon with people filling dozens of bottles each, and wonderful walking paths going in and out of the walls and with culture to boot. So we put thought to exploring staying here after going to Cinque Terre and reclaiming our bike from storage in Florence.