oh sweet lucca

this past weekend we ventured over to Lucca, a small town about an hour away (two and a half by train, mamma mia.) it was so beautiful, the centro of town is surrounded by this giant wall that was used as a defense in the middle ages. it was a very quaint town with bicycles everywhere, lining the streets propped up against stores...i did not see a single bike rack now that i think about it...anyways it was great.


the walls. sorry for the crappy quality.


"that girl is wearing the same dress as me" liz venderwerken.

unfortunately we were separated at the beginning of our small adventure with margaret, limher and alexa disappearing into a trattoria, which we learned later, and katherin, liz and i looking at shops and then look be looking for our thought-to-be-lost friends. i was mad hungry so i stopped the search and bought lunch at this pizzeria. the pizza was so good, oh man. its the pizza i have been wanting to have since coming to italy. thin crunchy crust, light on the tomato sauce, heavy on the cheese and this one was covered in mushrooms. i had mistakenly ordered a whole pizza, but was it really a mistake or divine intervention. i think i will have to go with the latter seeing as i consumed the whole thing. so good.



after my tummy was filled and my taste buds were satisfied we rented bikes from a shop close to the the piazza we were in. it was a small shop and i learned from the girl there that she and her brother started it a month ago. how cute! a bro and sis biz. after katherine was mostly satisfied with her gear setting, seat setting, and feeling like she wasnt going to fall over every other second we headed for the city walls. thats right we could ride our bikes around the walls. it was absolutely beautiful folks with rolling green hills in the distance and a perfect blue sky. this was hands down my favorite part of the day.


liz trying to keep herself modest. behold diaper dress.





and no italian city would be complete with out a couple with slightly inappropriate PDA. as we were riding around this little alcove thing with a statue centered in the middle there were two teenagers making out, not just kissing but lap in lap making out (really be more creative in your hiding places kids) and the best part was that both of them still had their head phones in. a salute to the music kiss. --you can find out more about this kiss and many others such as the underwater kiss, the electric kiss and my favorite the gangster kiss in william cane's the art of kissing which can be purchased at your local byu bookstore-- unfortunately i was not able to capture a picture of this scandi act.

after the bike ride and some wandering we meet back up with the others and headed to get our favorite treat gelato, however we were sorely disappointed because while the so called gelato filled my need for something cold and soft it tasted more like cheap ice-cream. so on a scale of gelato this was crap. Alexa promptly, well after we convinced her not to throw her cone away and finish it, asked a shop keeper where the best gelato was a went and bought a new one. oh i love her.


it even looks more like ice cream.

then it was back to the train station to head home. this was interesting to say the very least, but as you probably know if we are friends i never say the very least, most of the time i say more than i should but thats another story anyways, we get on this super tiny train and it is packed with people and not just any people italian teenagers, which are the wost kind. they were smoking and drinking and smacking margaret in the face with their eastsport backpacks. it was filthy. they were all dressed like punks and alexa suggested that they were all from the same high school for delinquent youths and i would have to agree with her. seriously the train from lucca to pisa was only like thirty minuets and they couldnt even wait for that short amount of time to smoke a cigarette. geez they have a problem.

but the day at luuca was fun even if the train ride stunk, quite literally. i would recommend it to anyone who likes small cute towns and ridding biciclette.