Pisa & Lucca

It was time to come off the mountain top and head north. We were a bit sad to leave.

Each morning, in our prayers, we ask God to direct our steps, and sometimes we get to see the result of that request. This morning, we stopped to wash the car and then planned to take the back roads north. But we just couldn't seem to find the right way out of town and found ourselves going in circles. We were a bit frustrated with Google maps as it took us about an hour before we finally got on the right road. Oh well, we weren't in a big hurry.

Our journey on this day was to Pisa for a quick visit, and then on to Lucca for one night.

Yup, me and 5,000 other people were all holding the tower up 😄. I thought it would be bigger but it was still very cool and was definitely leaning. There wasn't much else to see, and my knee was still healing so we decided not to climb to the top. Instead, we grabbed lunch.

Remember we asked God to direct our steps - so let me set the stage… the tables in the eating areas are all spaced very close together, about 8 inches apart, to get as many people in as they can. We ended up sitting next to a young man who was by himself. I believe his name was Nate. He had an elaborate tattoo on his arm that said “God is alive". Well, this sparked a conversation about our faith and struggles. Nate said he worked for himself in construction and was on a much needed break. We sensed he was struggling with something, but didn't ask. So, instead, we took the opportunity to encourage and love on him a bit. It was a great interaction. We finished our meals and said our good-bye's. As we left, it dawned on us why we were driving in circles that morning. We had an appointment with Nate and God was directing our steps so we would arrive right on time.

Next stop was Lucca. What's unique about this city is, you can walk on the city walls. These pictures show me actually standing on the wall, Keith down below on the path (he didn't want to climb up the embankment) and the distance and height of the wall. As we walked, it was fun looking down into the city. It was a very different perspective.

We stayed in a great little hotel in the center of town, and it was quite the challenge to get there. You can see in this picture how narrow the streets are. We had a small Fiat and barely fit down some of them. Later we learned we came in the wrong gate. Had we gone to the next entrance, it would have been a straight shot. Oh well…. we made it.

The next morning, we did a self guided audio walking tour of the city. Instead of going with a guide, or large group of people, we ordered an audio guide online that linked our path to Google maps and then gave a description and story of each place. It was very good, inexpensive, and flexible. If we passed something else we wanted to see, we could just stop, and restart the tour when we were ready. These were some of the towers and cathedrals. I especially liked the painting, it was very vibrant and colorful.

Here is my favorite person taking a picture of a beautiful door and knocker. You can see his earbud is in as we were on the tour and had to stop and take pictures of door knobs/knockers.