Why Lucca?

“Why Lucca?” we were asked, both on Tuesday night by Laura Inscoe’s husband and by one of the readers of the blog.  Here’s the story.

Back in December I was part of a meeting of the senior administrative team at St. Christopher’s to nominate possible recipients of a faculty summer sabbatical program that was established by a generous alumnus of the school two years ago.  Because last summer was the inaugural, I knew very little about the program or how it worked.  Two days later, during my regular meeting with the Headmaster, he informed me that there had been a secret meeting to which I was not invited and that I was being offered the summer sabbatical.

The sabbatical, as it was described to me, was to “Do something you would never be able to do on your own.”  I wanted to share the gift and experience with Shelley, and knew that she had never been to Europe (I’ve been once before), so that was an appealing option.  But I was also interested in carving out some concentrated time to work on a book idea.  Could I combine both, forgoing the grand tour of Europe for settling in a small town or city and living there for a month, using it as a home base for some travel?  So that’s what we decided to do.  My boss, Charley Stillwell, was very encouraging and helpful—in fact, every time I talked about the outline of our plan, he would ask “Have you thought about…?” and add an intriguing suggestion.  As a result we decided to add a week on the end of the trip and see Paris and London.

So where did Lucca enter the picture?  I initially thought about a city like Prague (which I hear is fascinating) or a town like Salzburg that I visited for a day on my previous trip.  Back when we were newlyweds, 31 years ago, we had an opportunity to go to Oslo and stay with a cousin, who was at the time the naval attaché for NATO in Norway, but decided to buy our first house instead, and so thought about going there a little belatedly.

At the top of Shelley’s list of places to visit was Italy, where her grandfather was born before immigrating to the United States, but because Paris was also a “must-see,” we thought about France as well.  So I started by researching places in Provence and Tuscany.

My first contact was Cindy Szadokierski, whom I coached along with Shelley on Randolph-Macon College’s first varsity women’s basketball team back in the late 1970’s.  Crab (her maiden name is Crabill) recently retired as a Vice President at United Airlines and is a world traveler, and I figured she would have already been any place worth visiting.  She e-mailed me back with a list of her favorites in Italy, and Lucca was on that list.

As I researched various options, Lucca popped to the top of the list for several reasons.  We decided early on that we wanted to try to do the entire trip using public transportation, and the train station is easily accessible.  We didn’t want a large city but worried that a small town wouldn’t offer enough to do, and we wanted a place that wasn’t overly touristy.  Lucca is also flatter than most of the towns and cities in Tuscany.  The final choice was between Siena and Lucca, and here we are.