So after Florence, we went to Lucca which is a small medieval town. It’s completely surrounded by a wall. It was nice because it was much less crowded than Florence and Rome. We walked around and saw the church pictured above. We went to a town square that was the shape of an oval because there used to be an amphitheater there. 

Saw another church and this one was interesting because it’s asymmetrical. They hadn’t originally planned to build a tower with it, and when they did decide to build a tower, it messed up the plans a bit. You can see that the right-most arch is smaller. 

We also saw this cool tower that had trees growing on top of it. 

We passed by this cool bin for separated trash! I loved all the labels–so colorful. Did you think just because my class was over that I’d stop blogging about trash?

We had dinner as a group and went back to the hotel we were staying at, which is a nice place. On a wall outside the hotel, I noticed all these geckos! Serena was scared of them. 

We also saw two cats! 

The next morning I saw another cat outside the hotel! Lucca is definitely beating Florence on cool animal sightings. 

In the morning we rented bikes and went for a ride on top of the wall that surrounds Lucca. It’s a big wall and has a walking path. 

We then went out of the city and biked around the countryside, which was beautiful. Holly and I were a bit annoyed at having to go slow for everyone else. 

We biked along a river and had this beautiful vista point. 

After the bike ride, Holly, Micah, and I went back into town and climbed up the tower we saw earlier that had trees on top. It had a great view of the city.

We were extremely sweaty from all this activity so we grabbed lunch and went back to the hotel to shower before the next excursion. Micah and I grabbed some bubble tea from a local place and it was really good. The lady at the bubble tea store didn’t speak English so I had to order for both of us in Italian. It feels better to be in a less touristy part of Italy (still plenty of tourists but much better than Rome and Florence).

In the afternoon we took a trip to Pisa and saw the leaning tower. I tried some variations on the typical tourist pose–let me know which one is your favorite. 

We then got gelato at a place Serena recommended and it was sooo good. Serena has done this a bunch of times so she knows all the best spots. We took the train back to Lucca and had dinner together. I need to take a second shower because it was so freaking hot. Anyway, we’re off to another place tomorrow: La Spezia. I don’t know anything about it but I’ll find out and report back.