“Have
you seen Stevie Wonder’s wife?” Cindy asked me as we walked to the train
station yesterday morning. We had just
walked past the stage at Piazza Napoleone where preparations were underway for
his Lucca Summer Festival concert last night.
To
her great disappointment I beat her to the punch—line. “Neither has he.” And last night he didn’t see us, nor we him,
despite our best intentions. The weather
over the weekend was the hottest we’ve had since we’ve been in Lucca, and the
heat along with Cindy and Mark wore us out.
As evening approached, Shelley decided that her need to go to bed at her
usual time after staying up late three nights in a row outweighed her desire to
see Stevie Wonder in concert in Lucca.
This
morning was twenty degrees cooler than yesterday, and it was thundering and
raining hard throughout the morning, the second or third Monday in a row that
it has rained. We spent the day indoors,
save for Shelley heading out to the store and going after lunch to do laundry
to carry us through the rest of our time in Europe. I spent the day writing and got a lot done.
With
a couple days remaining in our Lucca adventure, we are thinking about what, if
anything, we want to do while still here.
We’re also trying to use up supplies.
Shelley made spaghetti for lunch to use up the rest of the pasta, and
we’re on our last roll of toilet paper.
“I’m not buying any more toilet paper,” she announced yesterday, and I
promised to do my best to make that work.
On
that subject, Lucca is supposedly the leading producer of toilet paper and
tissue not just in Italy, but in Europe, with a monopoly on the machinery that
makes it. That’s probably a good
monopoly to have, with a market share that’s not likely to disappear any time
soon. From what I’ve seen and
experienced, it’s perfectly fine, but Mr. Whipple won’t stop squeezing the Charmin
and transfer his allegiance to Lucca any time in the foreseeable future. I started to suggest that we take home rolls
of Luccan toilet paper as gifts and souvenirs for our friends back home, but
thought better of it.
Late
in the afternoon it cleared up for us to go to dinner, and we decided to go
back to Osteria Via San Giorgio, the restaurant that didn’t have room for us on
Saturday night. It opens for dinner at 19:00, so a few minutes we headed that
way. On Via Fillungo was a street
musician playing violin in white tie and tails, and he had attracted a
crowd. We had no problem getting a table
tonight, and both of us ordered fish, because the restaurant supposedly brings
freshly-caught seafood from Vioreggio each day.
Shelley had cod and I had sea bass, the same thing I had when we went to
Cinque Terre. It was good, but obviously
didn’t have the same ambiance, or the same taste, as when I ate it overlooking
the Ligurian Sea. But after being
somewhat short with us on Saturday evening, the service and attentiveness were
excellent, in the top couple of all the meals we have had in Lucca.
On
our way back to the apartment we passed the violinist on his way home after his
street concert, and Shelley splurged and bought me gelato, one of the things I wanted
to make sure I did before we left.
Today
marked four weeks in Lucca, and tomorrow is our last full day here. We intend to enjoy every minute.
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