Ever since Easter Weekend, it has been raining nonstop here in Italy. This is good for the country, because apparently it was getting so bad they were going to shut the water off to all the residential buildings during certain hours of the day if the drought continued. While I’m happy I will still be able to shower when I want, it doesn’t really make a nice time for traveling. Well, this was the last excursion hosted by my program, API. SO SCARY. I’ll hold off on my leaving freak out for another day.
This last excursion was a day trip to Lucca, a small town in Tuscany. We started out our normal walking tour of the city, umbrellas in hand. Our tour guide, Gabrielle, was absolutely hilarious. When he introduced himself he said his name and then said “Like Gabriel, the angel that told Mary she was pregnant… We don’t have anyone named Mary here do we?” Clearly, this was going to be a good tour that started on the city walls. Lucca is one of the only cities in Italy that still has its original city walls. They are also about 12 meters wide, making them the widest walls in Italy. They were originally made to protect them from an invasion of Florence back when the Florentines were taking over all of Tuscany. However, they were never needed. Lucca was a rich city that made a lot of silk clothing and traded all over Europe. The Spanish actually threatened Florence to leave Lucca alone so they could still trade with them, so Lucca was left alone. The walls now have a garden on the top of them.
I am kind of behind on these entries because all of the different places I went on Spring Break put me behind. But I will be caught up by the end of this week I promise.
The weekend after Spring Break we had an excursion planned with API called “Under the Tuscan Sun.” They took us around different parts of Tuscany in order to show us what small town life in Italy is really like. First stop was Sienna. We did have a walking tour but it was more to just show the ways of life of the people rather than monuments. It was a beautiful city and it reminded me of a mini Florence.
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