11/ 8/08 Cycling Lucca to Montecarlo - 34 km Loop

We got on the tandem later than usual today. We felt itt was time for a shorter ride. We rode to Montecarlo to attend a small festival called the "first tasting of the wine". Alas, when we got there at 1pm we were told it wasn't to start until 3pm. How did we miss this? The information clarity gap has been a common denominator to our trip here in Italy. We wonder if this is due to us misunderstanding the information given, or is it that Italian brochures and literature is incomplete. Well, we are not going to pass judgement either way...Rather than wait, we decided to ride back mainly due to threatening dark clouds building up around us, and the fact that days have gotten short here, and we wouldn't enjoy much of the festival especially due to the likelihood that the 3pm start-up was more likely to become 4, or 5pm anyway... We managed to be back in Lucca without getting wet, and the route proved to be rewarding with undulating terrain, pretty small villages, lush farmland, and groves everywhere. Montecarlo is only 17km from Lucca, and to our surprise it turned out to be a charming small traditional cobble stone hill town, typical of many in Italy. It sported a clock tower with a small fort built in the 13th century, including great views of the valleys below from the well preserved city walls.

November 7, 2008: Hiking the Big Aqueduct

We had paritally hiked this aqueduct, but since it rained that day, we postponed going further up the hill. Today, the weather offered an opportunity to hike longer. Also, after yesterday's hard climb it made sense to climb to 420m. on foot at a slower, less demanding pace. The aqueduct is a true marvel. It was order built by Maria Luisa of Bourbone in 1822. Why, we really don't know, since it seems to us a ditch would have done the same job. Yet, this humongous project has the aqueduct up so high and approximately 3-4 km long. The arches are so big that local paved roads allow cars to drive across without a problem. It is only interrupted where the autostrada had to be built. The municipality built an overhead walkway to allow foot traffic along the entire length. Now, the engineer who had built this marvel was Lorenzo Nottolini. This water diversion system includes embankments, canals, inspection houses, screens to filter water, a holding tank, mini dams, stairs, and foot bridges. Walking along this project takes one into fantasy land, or something like a video game. We just loved it. At the source, the trail continues up the hills through magnificent chestnut forest broken up here and there by small hamlets with olive trees, pine, and vineyards. We hiked up about 10 km enjoying great views of valleys below before retuning back to Lucca.

November 6 - Cycling up to Pizzorne - 47km

Lucca is surrounded by hills, and mountains. It sits in the center of a fertile valley and makes an excellent base for cycling. Today we embarked on a fantastic, yet challenging, scenic ride to a small village at the top of a mountain at 990 meters. The area towns that lead to this place are just northeast of town. The intention was to do a loop, but when we got to Pizzorne, we followed signs to our intended destination, but got to either a dead end, or unpaved roads (this is quite typical in Italy when it comes to signage, or general information for that manner). After cursing in four languages, we decided we had better descend to where we had come from. This is when we realized just how high we had come. The scenery was fantastic, but the hands didn't like the prolonged squeezing on the brakes. The pavement was rather wet, and covered with leaves from the chesnut trees that are so abundant in this area. The long descent chilled our bodies, and we were happy to finally arrive at the flats where we could start pedalling again, and raise our body temperature to a comfortable level. On the flats we managed a good clip of 30kmph, and arrived in Lucca tired, but satisfied. It is hard to say which of our circuit rides around here is the prettiest. This ride definitely stands alone as one of the best!

November 4th and 5th, Rainy Lucca

A rainy day in Lucca on the 4th. We went shopping for groceries in spite of it and just hung around our new place all day.

Woke up on the 5th and immediately turned on the TV to see who our new president was...we were elated with the news and the landslide victory. We can tell you from our discussions with the Italians and without giving our own opinion, they, and the world are elated to have a smart, worldly, balanced president...everyone seems to have new hope. All of Italian TV for the next 24 hours was discussing the new president.

The rains decided to take a break today, so we decided to walk to Parco Fluviale just north of town. It is a path along the Serchio River which comes from the Apuane di Alpe in the Garfanga north of us. It was swollen from the rains and we satisfied our curiosity. In the afternoon, Mauny managed to go for a run on the city wall with other runners, strollers, and cyclists. The wall is definitely a place where seemingly the entire town uses almost on a daily basis. We truly love it here.

November 3rd, Lucca - Moving to a New Place

This a.m., we moved over to our new digs at Affitacamere Primavera inside the walls of Lucca. We stayed there a couple weeks ago and liked it. We will be here until November 19th, when we return to Venice to pack our bike for our trip home on the 23rd. It looks like currently that we do not need to share the bathroom, kitchen and living room with anybody in our new accomodations, since it is off-season. We were also given the bigger bedroom. The kitchen has a ref, stove and we can now cook our meals with dignity....no more sleuth cooking on the camping stove.

After settling in, we went and picked up our bike at our previous hotel where it was being stored and road back to our new place. Rain was threatening, but we got all done in time. So we went shopping and just enjoyed our new digs the rest of the day. The owner also owns a video store next door, so he set us up with a DVD player and we can now rent movies to watch at night.

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.

Friday - October 31, 2008 - Lucca - More Rain

18,000 people are expected to attend the Comic and Game convention. In fact people are starting to pour into town despite the bad weather. Tonight Mauny and Elaine celebrate their wedding anniversary. The plan was to go out, but Carmine suggested having dinner with friends at his charming apartment. We, of course accepted. We went to buy veggies, and a tasty cheese cake. We spent a wonderful evening that lasted into the wee hours. Carmine fixed a finger-licking good rissotto. He actually took the time to show Elaine and Mauny how it is prepared the Italian way. We hope to remember, and be able to make it back home. His friends were also charming, and they brought more fine dishes, and wine. We had slices of cheese with a walnut sitting on top of each slice. You put honey on it just before eating it. It is highly recommended! We went to sleep after midnight to the sound of rain outside.