It was a very rough week for all of us at the villa last week. Monday and Friday were Italian holidays and so the staff had these days off. Days off for the staff means no cooking by our amazing chef, Cristina. I know, rough life that we have fending for ourselves! We know how spoiled we are and certainly miss her when she’s not here. Needless to say, it was a lot of bland pasta dishes and pizzas from Pizzeria Casteletto this week / weekend. This is the final push for everyone in the villa, as the students have their final project due on Wednesday and I turned in my last paper ever for grad school on Sunday. Woo Hoo! I am so excited to be done, but sit here today wondering what the heck am I going to do with all my free time now?
This week however did not happen without a day trip. Our last one of the semester, and it certainly was bittersweet. We returned to Lucca, it was a lot different then our last trip to Lucca, this time Nick was upright and on his own two feet. Giudi and I reminisced all day about how many times we tried to kill him the last time we were here, and never succeeded!
Our first stop of the day was Villa Reale, man I could just walk around these gardens all day. While the villa itself could use some up keeping on the outside, the land is just amazing and so well kept. After a morning visit we then made our way to the walled town of Lucca, where Nick and I enjoyed some amazing sandwiches in the towns main piazza. Nick’s was raw sausage, which we were told was a local speciality and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Mine was basic with a salami with fennel and cheese, while very simple, it was quite delicious. We topped our lunch off with the biggest cone of gelato I have ever seen.
Clouds loomed over us most of the day with an occasional glimpse of sunshine, and luckily the rain was kind enough to hold off until we had visited our last stop of the day, the city tower that overlooks Lucca, giving us a beautiful view of this awesome tuscan city and its surrounding landscape. But unfortunately, when the clouds finally opened, they opened in a big way and we rode the bus home looking like a bunch of drowned rats. We all laughed that our first day trip together outside of Genova this semester was to Milan in the rain / snow / sleet and we ended it in Lucca in the pouring down rain, it only seemed appropriate to end our final day trip in such a fashion.
I have to say I will be sad to see some of these kids go, it will be quiet around the villa for the next month until Nick and I depart. However, the good news is that we won’t be spending too much of our time in the lonely villa. Our friends arrive this Sunday and we plan to visit Florence and Roma with them, and then we will depart the following Saturday for our last hoorah (as I am calling it), an eleven day trek around Europe. This to celebrate our survival of the last nine months of living together 24/7, surviving living with 17 other people, my surviving grad school and celebrating Nick finally on his way back to a normal life – LOL.
We are so excited to be able to have the opportunity to do a little more traveling before we depart home for the States at the end of May and hope to be able to stop and smell the roses a little more on this trek.
Lucca Photos: https://flic.kr/s/aHsjXFtk28