Day 29 – Lucca to Roma

Daily Wrap-Up

One Word

• Barb: Carless
• Mike: Homestretch
• Jen: Pecora

Two Words

• Barb: Lucca details
• Mike: Clockwork connections
• Jen: Last stop

Three or Four Words

• Barb: Rainy road trip
• Mike: Hundred-mile car wash
• Jen: Aperto per cena lunedi?

One Sentence

• Barb: Ah, another surprisingly smooth transition.
• Mike: Italian drivers are awful: This comment could have been used on any and every day of our trip.
• Jen: We’ve seen lots of sheep and oodles of pecorino cheese but no wool or woolen goods.

We took one last lap around Lucca this morning, noting and photographing some of the details we’ve picked out during the past week.

We never did visit Palazzo Pfanner, though we walked past it every day to and from the car. This impressive 17th-century house with its 18th-century garden contains a collection of court garments from the 18th and 19th centuries, many made from silk, which I understand was the source of much of medieval Lucca’s wealth.

Palazzo Pfanner and its garden.

Then there’s San Martino with its squashed facade. The church was built after the campanile on the right, and rather than design or re-design the church to fit in the available space, the right side was just smooshed in, making the facade asymmetrical. I think that was a bizarre choice, perhaps even lame.

The asymmetrical facade of San Martino. Do you think St. Martin is disappointed?

And then there was this cool lion statue. I love the tongue and curly mane. I imagine the lion saying “I look…I look…stupid” in reference to that perfectly curled mane. That’s from an exchange between Lumiere and Beast when the hat rack is doing Beast’s hair for dinner with Belle.

Lion statue in Lucca. What’s up with those ribs?

Some lampposts here in Lucca have a trio of lion feet for the base. Lampposts along the Arno in Florence also had lion feet.

A trio of lion legs and feet adorn the base of lampposts.

And then it was time to pack up and head to Rome for three nights. This Rome extension over Easter weekend is a bonus. We had planned to fly home just before Easter, perhaps out of Florence rather than Rome, to avoid what we assumed would be a super-busy and crowded time in Rome. That was even before the old pope resigned and a new one was installed. However, flight prices were so much cheaper after Easter that we tacked on an extra three days.

We contemplated staying elsewhere in the country during this time but decided instead to throw ourselves into the fray rather than attempt to avoid it. Sometimes it’s fun to do the opposite of what you’d most like to do. And when in Rome….

So off we went through the hardest and most continuous rain we’ve had all month. It was good: We turned in a cleaner car than we expected.

Returning the car to the airport was surprisingly easy. (No way are we driving in Rome—are you completely nuts?!) From there we found the train station and fumbled our way through purchasing tickets to Trastevere, which is ridiculously hard for me to pronounce—tras-TE-ver-eh. I think that’s it. I want to say tras-te-VER-eh.

The hardest part was validating our tickets. We got little stubs of paper instead of the larger airline-boarding-pass-size tickets we got in Chiusi. The validation machines don’t seem to readily recognize the stubs. I tried and tried, but the machine wouldn’t punch my stub. I tried to see if the machine could read the bar code somehow. Other travelers were similarly clueless and hoped I’d figure it out. In the end, Mike had the touch. He was the only one to be able to get the machine to see the stubs and punch them.

Whatever. It’s Italy. We know better than to expect procedures will be clear and efficient.

When we got on the train to Trastevere, Mike called the home owner, and he met us at the other end with a car to transport us and our luggage to our apartment. Easy peasy!

Trastevere is said to have retained its original character (whatever that may have been), with its narrow cobbled streets and medieval houses. Residents and visitors alike flock to the area at night for the restaurants and pubs. And there are a number of foreign educational institutions in the area. Our apartment is fine but rather bare bones. My favorite parts are the marble floor in the entrance and the wide, curving marble stairs to the first floor.

Another first-floor walkup (up wide marble stairs). Barb’s in her room which doubles as the living room, directly above the front door of the building; Mike’s coat and hat are in the kitchen (he’s across the street taking the picture, du-uh); the bathroom is to the right of the kitchen; I’m in our bedroom.

The other side of the street.

The buildings across the street look a bit better than the one we’re in.

Guess what the first order of business was.

Seriously, you don’t know? I’ll give you a hint: Tomorrow is Easter. We expect lots of things to be closed, and we’ve learned that many things are also closed on Easter Monday.

So the first order of business was food! The homeowner recommended a restaurant that he and his friends frequent, but I called and asked “Aperto per cena lunedi?” (Are you open for dinner on Monday?), and the answer was no. We’re hoping to get lunch there sometime, but I’m not counting on it. Our dining-out track record is dreadful. I can’t imagine it will be convenient when the time comes.

We found a grocery store on the opposite side of our block and a produce shop around the corner. Now, even if we find nothing open from now until we leave on Tuesday, we won’t starve. That’s a good feeling. Bring it on, Rome!

Our living room, dining room, and Barb’s bedroom. There’s an orange sofa bed opposite the TV wall. See? Orange is a popular color here. We never did turn on a TV in Italy.
This is a still photo made from a video. There may be a frame that is more clear than this one, but I don’t have the patience to try and find it. Note to self: Stills from videos are not the best.