Lucca is an easy town to love, plus, not surprisingly, it has a strong historical link with Rosewood. Lucca was the home of some great musicians – Puccini is the favourite son, and Paganini got his first big gig here as first violin in Lucca’s main string ensemble. Two hundred years later the Tokyo String Quartet play with four Stradavari instruments that were owned by Paganini himself. AND the Tokyo String Quartet had their first big break when Ted and Myrl invited them to play at the opening of the Farmers’ Market in John Street, the main street of Rosewood. Talk about six degrees of separation!

Lucca is a beautiful walled city and was spared much of destruction that usually accompanies the invasions that have occurred regularly in this part of Europe. After the 5th century, except from a sacking by Pisans early on and by Napolean at the beginning of 1800’s it was relatively untouched. It has 101 churches dating back to the 12th century or ealier, and a shopkeeper just up the road who is even older. There is no central produce market, but there are plenty of wonderful small stores that are filled with local Tuscan produce. Being Italy, food and wine are taken seriously everywhere and transport to smaller surrounding towns is easy enough to negotiate.

The other thing that Luccans did that is quite impressive is that they lifted their whole city up 2 metres in the 1100’s. Lucca is situated on a flood plain- a feature that is fine for defending a small town but regular flooding can give the citizens of a bigger city the absolute shits. So they decided to pull down every building, put down a 7 foot layer of sand and rubble, then put all their buildings back together again. Some of the 101 churches were rotated 180 degrees and the streets were given medieval twists and turns, but essentially it was reconstructed brick by brick.

Yesterday we travelled about an hour by train to go to Pistoia for the day. It is a stunning, small city about half way between here and Florence. The centre is almost all pedestrian and there are plenty of sites worth viewing. Farquar and I visited the museum of a hospital that is about 1000 years old – although the museum was fantastic the equipment used to treat urinary conditions was still causing winces and squirms some 200 years later. The four of us had some of the best food on this trip so far at a restaurant at the markets in Pistoia, (any trip to Italy actually means some of the best food you will eat in your life).

The day finished with a concert of Puccini and Mozart pieces in a chapel that is part of Lucca’s cathedral complex. As my three followers know, I am something of the Renaissance Man – creative dance, complex vocal pieces, classical music arrangements played on any of woodwind instruments – these are all skills I have pursued, then mastered. Because of my own journey as an artiste I do appreciate greatly the attempt by these younger performers to master at least one of the finer Arts. Well done those performers, well done.

Today will be spent beginning our preparations for the arrival of both Natale and Natalie in the coming days. There are gifts to be purchased and menus to be planned. We have decorated a window sill this year rather than a Christmas chair (Christmas trees are quite the rarity, nativity scenes seem to be the go in Italy, Spain and Portugal – so when in Lucca……)

If time permits we may look for another concert to attend. Oh if only Myrl and Ted could have been here to accompany us to last night’s performance, Myrl would have whistled along with each piece and Ted could have broken out in song – plus I’m certain they would have relished the knowlege that a Paganini circle had been closed: no wonder there is such synergy between Rosewood and Lucca…

Farley et al

When they found out later that I was in the audience they were so overcome they pretended not to be able to speak English!

Oh the cheese…

Our beautiful niece and her partner were able to track us down.

The stream outside our door, and yes Remington, it’s full of trout!