19th
Saturday Oct 18
I’m actually writing this on Sunday morning from our B & B in Lucca. We left Cinque Terra yesterday morning. We took a very short train ride to LaSpezia, where we picked up our rental car (a very cool-looking Alfa Romeo station wagon, w a 6 speed manual transmission). From there we drove to Pisa and had lunch very near the tower. We then drove about another hour to Lucca. We strolled around this walled city for an hour or so, had a light dinner and then went to the opening night performance of Puccini’s “Rigoletto”. This is the 150th anniversary of Puccini’s birth here in Lucca. The performance was in the church where Puccini was baptized; it was built in 1393. There was seating for only about 300 people and we were no more than about 50 feet from the stage. Although none of us is really an opera fan, we all thought it was just thrilling. Those voices!!
We’re about to start planning our day. We may go to Vinci, where there’s a Leonardo da Vinci museum. Everything seems to be closed on Mondays, so tomorrow may be a quiet day.
The computer is now in demand for day-planning purposes.
Tim
