Our Trip: Part 2

We took three main trips when we were in Lucca: to the Cinque Terre, to Firenze, and up into Garfagna, specifically to Barga and San Pellegrino.

On Tuesday, after two days of relaxing by the pool, we headed to the Cinque Terre. Having done it before 5 years ago, I thought I rembered how hard it was! Yeah right!! It was quite hard. We took the train to Monterosso from Lucca and hiked the first two villages: Monterosso to Vernazza and Vernazza to Corniglia (the two hardest paths). After that, we took a break, had lunch in Corniglia, and were on our way back to Lucca! We learned later that the day we hiked the Cinque Terre, three tourists died by falling off the cliff! Apparently they went off the path to take pictures!

There were many steps to climb.....and then more......and then more......

Boats in Vernazza-Cinque Terre

Vernazza, Cinque Terre

Vernazza

On Thursday, the three of us, went to firenze (this was the first train ride for Oliver!). We debated going to Florence considering it was hailing at the Lucca train station, but in the end we went. The rain briefly held off, allowing us to walk by the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, and by Santa Croce before there was a giant soaking downpour! We headed to the Mercato Centale, for Reed to see all the goodies! I stopped paying attention after he made me look at a skinned calf head! Still there were lots of goodies, especially upstairs, where we bought some olives fresh from Sicily to cure-Some how we messed them up though :(. We plan on going back and taking the train because the prices are really low at the market!!!!!

Firenze-il Duomo

The Ponte Vecchio-Firenze

Santa Croce as the storm rolls in-Firenze

Sicilian olives that we bought at Mercato Centrale

The vegetable stands at Mercato Centrale

On Friday, we headed to the hotel that Gianlucca works out of so that Reed could help Enzo with a presentation for the Japanese students that are attending Gianluccas schools. It was a crazy morning but I got to stay in the kitchen and watch everything being prepared which was a lot of fun!

The day at Gianluccas-Enzo the owner of the restaurant Reed works at is right behind Reed.

Relaxing in the yard with Ollie

On Saturday we took the car and headed north. On the way, we passed three stands selling Tartufo Fresca (Fresh Truffles)- we ended up buying two different kinds of white truffles.

The truffles that we bought-both are tartufo bianco (white truffles)

The bigger white truffle pictured above is apparently used more for making oil. This is still the beginning of the season so they were small. The truffles we bought were from San Miniato.

After that it was on to Barga, a very small medieval village, and then on to San Pellegrino, which is more than 1000 m above sea level. The town is verrrry small. Below is the whole town! We had about 5 minutes there before the fog rolled in and it was impossible to see anything!

San Pellegrino

Before the fog.......

The fog starts to roll in........

The fog has arrived......

After this, it was time to head back to Siena and start school. We did manage to stock up on quite a few Mexican ingredients at the store in Lucca (I bought the last three boxes of Taco shells at the store in Lucca!)