Tuscan Treasures Tour: Day 3

Saturday, June 8: Lucca

We had a 9am departure today after breakfast at the hotel as we set off for a full day adventure in Lucca, the hometown of our Tour Director, P. Both Mr. E and I were awake way too early due to jet lag, so there was plenty of time for my workout and a leisurely morning meal. 

Our local guide was Gabriele, who was very knowledgeable and passionate about Lucca but who talked almost a bit too much during the tour up onto the walls and through the city. After about an hour, I started to tune out and just enjoy the surroundings rather than trying to listen to all of the facts and details. We visited the church and Piazza of San Martino, the San Frediano Church, the San Michele Church in what used to be the Roman forum, strolled by the Roman amphitheater, and admired the panoramic view from the top of the walls, which extend about 4km total to encircle the city and are an iconic part of the place (and also host to large concerts and other events). Outside of the walls are rows of linden trees, which have a very distinctive and pleasant sweet aroma.

Due to the Lucca Summer Festival 2024, including that evening's concert with Ed Sheeran, the city was quite active and busy. We had a group lunch at the historic La Buca di Sant'Antonio, a Michelin starred restaurant, and I was very pleased with the accommodations they were able to make for my dietary restrictions. Two of my dishes even included shaved truffles on top!

Lunch wrapped up in the mid-afternoon, leaving us with several hours of free time before our next group activity in the evening. L, Mr. E, and I decided to go back to the hotel rather than trying to figure out what to do in Lucca, especially since we were all feeling the effects of jet lag. We tried to call for a taxi, but due to the upcoming evening festivities and general busyness of the day, we weren't successful at getting a taxi to come to the restaurant so we decided to go to the transit point near one of the gates into the city to try our luck there. Still no taxi, but I did discover the E6 bus, with a route that took us directly back towards our hotel in Pescia and cost less than $5 per person. Sweet! The driver was very friendly and helpful and made sure to tell us when to get off, leaving us with just a 5-minute walk to the hotel. We immediately made arrangements with the front desk to schedule a taxi for us at 6pm to take us back to Lucca for the evening, and then we all went off to nap for a couple of hours.

Our evening activity was a performance of opera arias as part of the ongoing Puccini Music Festival. Lucca is the composer's hometown, and they are very proud of that status even though during his lifetime he wasn't always welcomed there and ended up living out his life elsewhere. The program included a few arias from his operas along with a selection of other pieces, sung by a tenor and a soprano with a solo piano accompaniment. 

A member of our group, J, had a fall during the day and twisted her knee. She's the same person whose spouse lost his passport during the flight to Frankfurt, where he was detained and eventually sent back to the US. Yikes! Another member of our group, G, was an RN, so he helped to treat J and take care of her. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a hike back to the group bus for the return to our hotel. Since we didn't get back until 8:45pm, I opted to skip dinner (not to mention that I was still pretty full from the multi-course lunch!) and just go to bed, but Mr. E and L had enough stamina to join the group for the meal.

We learned during our travels about different aspects of Pescia, including that two important economic drivers of the area are flower and plant processing (there was a large facility for this purpose not too far from the hotel) and producing and recycling paper products, including "luxury hygiene solutions" (aka toilet paper).

Tuscan Treasures Tour: Days 1 & 2

Thursday, June 6-Friday, June 7: SMF > ORD > FRA > FLO > ZUR > FLO

Mr. E and I got picked up at 5:45am for the first leg of our trip to Italy, flying from Sac to Chicago to meet up with his mom. We had a lovely First Class experience, including a viewing of Anatomy of a Fall for me, which is one of the French films I've been wanting to see. Thumbs up! We connected with Mr. E's mom in the Polaris Club at O'Hare, where we all enjoyed some food and beverages and Mr. E and I managed to fit in our Duolingo Italian practice for the day.

The three of us settled into our Polaris pods for the flight from Chicago to Frankfurt. The overall experience was rather underwhelming this time around, compared to previous Polaris trips. Customer service was lackadaisical and inconsistent, the menu options weren't great for me, no additional wines were offered, and apparently there were no hot breakfast items loaded onto the plane so Mr. E was only able to have a very basic morning option (I was still snoozing). Bleah. Totally a first-world problem, but when you pay a hefty price for this level of travel, you do have certain expectations, so it's disappointing when they're not met. We did like the new amenity kits and blanket but I totally forgot that our return flight was on Lufthansa rather than United to missed the opportunity to snag a blanket for home. Oops!

My movie experience on this flight wasn't too successful. I tried Oppenheimer and The Imitation Game but didn't finish either due to annoying characterization in the first (gratuitous sex scene) and slow pace in the second. But I did enjoy my final choice of Freelance (one of those movies that was probably better than it should have been) before shutting down my entertainment unit for the night.

Our departure from Chicago had been delayed, but we seemed to make up time during the flight. Until we started circling around the airspace above Frankfurt... By the time we landed, we had less than 30 minutes to make our connecting flight to Florence. Surprisingly, there were two Lufthansa employees waiting at the end of the jet bridge specifically for us, and they did their best to get us to the flight, but as we were driving in a small van across the tarmac, they received notice that we were too late. Darn. They stayed with us so that we could go through a special and quick customs check and then brought us directly to Lufthansa Customer Care for re-booking. Amazing and unexpected personalized service!

Due to this delay, our new itinerary took us to Zurich first with a connection to a Swiss Air flight to Florence. We spent time in the (crowded) airport lounges in both Frankfurt and Zurich. The Lufthansa flight to Zurich was lovely, with attentive and friendly flight attendants, a breakfast offering, and a special bon-bon to finish off the meal (added to the stash in our bags for later). The Swiss Air flight was quite unusual, as the brother (from South Africa) of one of the flight attendants was on board, and she was so excited to see him and celebrate his birthday! There were at least two rounds of singing, some gifts, and even a special cake. 

Once we arrived in Florence, we quickly found our driver and claimed our checked bags (very fast belt!). Two other members of our tour group were on the same flight, so we all headed to the van as the driver packed up our suitcases. We started to leave the airport but then circled around to fetch two more people who had arrived the day before and were coming from Florence to meet up with the group transportation.

We arrived at our home for the week, Villa delle Rose in Pescia, around 3:45pm, about 6 hours later than expected due to the changes in our itinerary. L was in Room 23, and Mr. E and I had Rooms 22 and 20, all on the first floor, which was quite convenient. We discovered that Room 20 at the end of the hall was actually slightly larger than the others, so we made that our home base and used Room 22 as an extra space for working out, napping, etc. Mr. E and L rested a bit while I unpacked and did my workouts for the day. We had time before the evening group meet-up to explore the hotel a bit, including dipping our feet in the lovely outdoor pool. Chilly!!! Despite the decent size and great lane lines, I realized I wouldn't be partaking of that amenity during our visit...

The first gathering for our tour was a cocktail and snacks orientation at 7pm on the covered patio near the pool. P welcomed us, gave some info for the next day, collected the mandatory gratuities and optional activity payments, and then herded us to the restaurant for our first group dinner. Each dinner at the hotel was multi-course, and over the week, the staff got to know which of us had certain dietary restrictions, so they were very accommodating in making sure we had special dishes compared to the standard group dinner menu.

I was in bed before 9pm. *Yawn*