A Sampling of Lucca's Specialties

Yesterday we decided to go out and sample several of the things for which Lucca is best known.

We first walked down to the Piazza Napoleone, home of the Lucca Summer Festival held each July since 1998.  There will be eleven concerts held outside in the Piazza during the month of July, with the headliners this summer including the Eagles, Stevie Wonder, and the Backstreet Boys.  The workers are busy setting up the stage and bleachers for the first concert next week.

We then walked around the Passeggiata delle Mura, the ramparts that surround the city.  The wall was constructed in the late 16^th or early 17^th century, an upgrade on previous walls that date back to the Romans and later to medieval times.  The best part of the wall today is that it has been turned into a tree-lined park where people can walk or bike, and we did the full two-and-a-half mile loop.  When we decided to come to Lucca my plan was to rent bicycles for the month and do a daily ride around the wall.  Unfortunately it is a steep 51-step climb from street level to the apartment, where we would have to store the bikes, so I’ll have to settle for renting bikes once a week or so. 

By the time we finished the walk my knees were aching, one of the reasons I was looking forward to biking.  My adventure next summer will be somewhat less glamorous than this, as I will be undergoing knee replacement surgery.  How the knees will hold up was my biggest fear coming into the trip, and I’ve been pleased so far, but I definitely felt them last night.

On the way home we stopped into a pasticceria (pastry shop) and bought a loaf of buccellato, a local delicacy.  Buccellato is bread dotted with raisins, lightly flavored with anise, and we had it for breakfast this morning.  It was good, but it would be hard to top my childhood memories of eating iced raisin bread.  Shelley’s take was that buccellato would be better served with butter, but we haven’t seen a lot of butter in Lucca in restaurants or at the market where we get groceries.

While walking we found a restaurant on top of the wall that had a sign indicating that it would be televising on large screen the World Cup between the USA (Stati Uniti) and Germany (Germania), so went back there for dinner and to watch the game.  For dinner I ordered Tordelli Lucchese, a local dish.  It is homemade ravioli stuffed with meat and served with meat sauce, and it was very good.

Just like the Italy-Uruguay game we watched on Tuesday, the final score of the game was 1-0 and the team I was rooting for lost, but it had a different feel.  The Italy game was rough and ugly, described subsequently as perhaps the worst of the cup so far.  There was a red card disqualification and biting (which earned no penalty).  Italian expectations were high and as a result the loss bordered on crushing.  For the American team, beating Germany would have been historic, and from the beginning the Germans were dominant and controlled the ball and game, and the question was not whether the Germans would win but whether we could keep it close. The USA managed to do that, and then almost got a tying goal at the very end on one of its only opportunities the entire game.  I am not one of those who believes that any loss is a tragedy, and for the United States to lost to Germany in the World Cup is nothing to be ashamed of.  The best news was learning at the game’s conclusion that Portugal’s win over Ghana meant that Stati Uniti will move to the elimination round, an accomplishment.  Who would have thought when we landed on Monday that by the end of the week Italy (plus Spain and England) would be eliminated and the United States still alive?

Most of our exploring so far has been in the southern and western sides of Lucca, and at dinner last night Shelley said that we should try to see more of the eastern side.  Well, we accomplished that walking home from dinner, and learned that we can get just as lost and confused on that side of town.  We found our way well enough, but whe we got home I walked right by the apartment building door until Shelley asked me where I was going.  I’ve always had pride in my sense of direction.  That may be gone by the time we leave Lucca.