November 1st - Rain; November 2nd - A 56.k Ride

It rained off and on all day on All Saint's Day. So we talked with Carmine in the morning and then went out to explore the Comic and Games convention. The paper says there are over 50,000 people here now. Carmine had dinner plans tonight, so we came back and made a great barley and vegetable soup and read. We were going to go out and see more costumes at night, but got too tired reading and went to bed early.

On Sunday, November 2nd, we woke up to sunny skies. After breakfast and socializing with Carmine around the table, we walked to get our bike where it is stored in our last affitacamere and took it on a nice ride west of the city. There were throngs of bicyclists out, about 10 groups were seen with about 50 bikers in each group. The ride took us through rows and rows of olive trees being harvested. We have lovely pictures of the white, orange and green nets that are placed under the trees to collect the fallen olives. Carmine told us that there was great concern about all the rain destroying the olives that fall. His father has an olive orchard and makes olive oil.

Our destination was a large lake of which we got a great vista. We came upon another hill town and had our lunch there, before heading toward Lucca. On the outskirts of Lucca, we followed a river trail that took us toward town. The river was peaking. We found a lovely raised caffe trail side and stopped for our afternoon coffee. After putting the bike back in storage, we walked on the grass surrounding the walls of Lucca for a change, and enjoyed the scenes of humanity as well as all the comic characters from the convention.

Carmine went to a retreat in Florence, so we had dinner alone at his place, read and went to bed. It has been wonderful staying with him. He is a very warm man with a great sense of humor and genorosity. Allowing us to use his kitchen to cook (with real pots and pans and dishes) has been a great treat as well. We are looking forward to spending more time with him in the next couple of weeks, as he is just around the corner from the apartment we are taking. He wants us to be involved with our arts in some of his workshops with his clients. Should be interesting.