Bright and early Tuesday morning Nick and I called for a cab and took it a whole two roads down to the park where the chartered bus picks up the class for day trips. After our short, yet pricey cab ride, we boarded the bus and set off for Lucca, Italy. Lucca is an interesting, small, walled town southeast of Genova about 2.5-3 hours.
 |
| Walls of Lucca |
However, prior to our tour of the city we made a stop off at Villa Reale, what a treat this was. In 1805, Napoleon’s sister, Elisa Baciocchi joined several properties together to create this amazing “ensemble”. The gardens were absolutely stunning, I could have stayed here all day just listening to the fountains. I felt bad that Nick couldn’t enjoy some of it’s most stunning aspects, but kept reminding him that we would be back next semester – I am just grateful that we were able to make the trip and get out for a bit. Unfortunately the wheelchair that Giudita let us borrow is not made for “off-roading” and at times we had issues on the gravel paths, but we made it 🙂
 |
|
|
| Villa Reale |
|
|
 |
| Teatro d’Acqua (Water Theatre) |
 |
| Palazzina dell’Orologio (Clock Mansion) |
 |
|
| Giardino dei Limoni (Water Feature in the Lemon Garden) |
 |
| Nick sketching – Palazzina dell’Orologio |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After several hours of touring the grounds of Villa Reale we made our way back to Lucca. It was neat passing under the walls into the city. We spent several hours here with a guided tour from Giuditta, complete with lunch from Doner Kebab, visiting the Cathedral, and climbing to the top of a tour which gave us a 360 view of Lucca.
 |
| Kebabs in Lucca |
 |
| Facade of S. Michele in Foro |
 |
| S. Michele in Foro |
 |
| Duomo of San Martino (Lucca’s Cathedral) |
 |
| Inside Duomo of San Martino |
All in all it was a good, but exhausting day. This was the first full day that we had been out since Nick’s accident. The only mishap we had was when we arrived to Lucca, I was pushing him through the uneven streets and unfortunatly one of the wheels got caught and his foot planted into the ground pretty hard. After some rest, lunch and ibuprofen we were again on our way and enjoyed the rest of our day. While we are thankful to Giuditta for the use of the wheelchair, I envision her mother, whom she bought it for, being MUCH smaller then my 6’3″ husband 🙂
This weekend a lot of the students have headed off to travel, there are some left though, but it should be a nice, quiet, relaxing weekend as we prepare for the Villa Party next Friday.
