Off to Venice

We left Lucca in the morning, after a beautiful breakfast on the patio in the lovely Tuscan sun. We stopped for lunch at a small town which, luckily, had a store open on Easter Sunday where we could buy a picnic lunch.













We drove to Venice, already a tourist melee in the shoulder season. It’s beautiful and overwhelming and kitsch and genuine all at once. Ria is in heaven. Our apartment is funky, off a tiny alley near several main sites. We’ve started laundry (finally!) and we’re off to find dinner. So far the trip is going exactly as planned, and Ria is a delightful travel companion.

Vipore

We drove up and down the hills around Pieve San Stefano, searching for Casa Puccetti, the villa my family rented when I was Ria’s age. I don’t think we found it, but we were certainly in the neighborhood. This house came closest to my memories, but it lacks a crucial upper-floor balcony.














We ate dinner at Il Vipore, restaurant of my childhood memories. It was a good meal, and once again, we ordered one too many courses. How do these Italians eat so much?!

Lucca

The tourist office made a reservation for us at a villa outside Lucca, but didn’t mention how very difficult it would be to find the villa using the tourist map. After many wrong turns (through beautiful country) we found our way to this spectacular home high on a hill.

The restaurant served us a delicious (if mysterious) dinner. Speaking almost no Italian makes ordering from the menu something of a crap shoot. But generally it’s all good, and Ria got a fabulous trio of little puff pastries.

We spent the next day lying by the endless pool with endless views of the Tuscan countryside – a perfect re-creation of my childhood memories spent in the hills outside of Lucca, a pool replacing pine nuts. Thom went running, Ria played with the manager’s three-year-old daughter, Jade, and I read about renovating a riad in Casablanca – a story Thom sees as a cautionary tale, and I as a challenge. Thom will prevail, of course. He suggested that we pull Ria out of school at the beginning of spring break next year and spend two months in a rental villa in Italy, Spain or France. I have no objection to that.

Leaving Cinque Terre

In the morning, we had breakfast in the main plaza, and then Ria played in the sand and the surf until cuts and scrapes on her legs started to hurt from the salt water. We packed up, headed out, and drove to Lucca. These photos are all of Cinque Terre.