Holiday Diary - Part 2
Wednesday 21-Jul
Start of second week. Actually, it seemed more: I'd really settled in
to Lucca. For the morning excursion, I went to the walls by my regular
route, but this time turned left, instead of right towards San
Frediano. The other way led me to the bastion of Santa Croce, and I
realised I hadn't been to it before, proving that I hadn't yet covered
all the wall. (I think that did complete it though.)
There is some work going on to the walls between San Fred and Santa
Croce, with notices on the hoardings to explain what's going on. I seem
to have been right about the truncation of San Frediano's bastion,
because, if I understood the text correctly, that was the last area of
wall to be upgraded from the medieval one. And it seems it was a
botched job, because just five years after completion, the city issued
a contract for repairs. But that's still the area of wall that's in
worst condition and needing restoration today.
The bastion at Santa Croce itself is fine for shady relaxation. There
is a ruined gun platform in the centre (some bastions have them --
there's one on San Colombano (one of our boys) which has been roofed
over and turned into an expensive restuarant.) Not all the bastions
have benches, but in this case I found one and sat down. After a while,
and old gentleman cycled up in polo shirt, shorts and trainers and long
sports socks (you know the look: everything washed and ironed. It's
supposed to look sporty, but isn't.)
He asked for permission and sat on the other end of the bench with a
motoring magazine, but he couldn't settle to it. Probably, I was
sitting on HIS customary bench and had ruined his day. Eventually he
bid me a good morning and got on his bike and left.
When I'd had enough of sitting idly (and in my case, that's a lot) I
walked on round to the next bastion, San Donato, and the city gate,
Porta Santa Anna. There's a piazza there with a tourist information
office, and I took the opportunity to get a couple of different free
city maps. It's good to compare different ones, and with a lot of
restaurant ads on one of them (with addresses) there was the potential
for hungry evening wanderings being a little more directed.
There was a big metal map outside as well, with the interesting
addition of the lines of the earlier walls being shown. Actually, it's
obvious when you see it that the core of the old city was originally
within the Roman walls, and has a grid street pattern on a different
orientation to the outer parts. My apartment is inside the Roman city.
It's clear that there was some continuity between Roman and Christian
times, because the big church of San Michele has the epithet "in Foro"
because it was built over the Forum. There's also a church of Santa
Maria Fore Portam -- SM By the Gate -- where the Decumanus Maximus (Via
Roma) from the Forum would have met the walls at a gate.
I took a walk through the little streets in the general direction of
the Piazza Napoleone, still set up for concerts (another week to go,
with Placebo the last). I sat down again and in a short time I heard
the sound of vuvuzelas (not a word I'd have known a month previously).
Round the corner came one of the 4-wheel pedal bikes that usually
circle the walls. Noisily, because there was a stack of tin cans tied
to the back; and the pedalling was being done by a bride and groom.
Behind them came an entourage of wedding guests, including the ones
making with the honking. Some very fine ladies in most glamorous and
sexy dresses, and shoes to die for. Or to fall off a cobblestone and
break your ankle for.
After that interlude, it settled down again, getting on for the heat of
midday. A pretty young woman sat on the bench next to mine, and posing
most artfully, went through the girly routine of hair and makeup. I
have no problem with that: artifice and playing a role are normal forms
of human expression and part of the difference between the sexes. And
Vive la Différence.
The only thing was, and maybe the heat was getting to my brain here, I
was the only person near, and I thought I could see her taking looks at
me. It seemed, well, unusual. After the brush and compact were put
away, the girl took out a long white cigarette and put it, unlit, in
her mouth. Now, as I understand it from the old movies, once upon a
time that was supposed to be a social signal: I am open to being
approached. That custom may have become extinct or endangered now that
smoking is left only to a minority of poor unfortunates, and, even in
Italy, has about the same level of glamour as say, leprosy; but I think
I have the gist of the original idea.
So at that point, I could have whipped out my lighter and offered a
light and conversation would have started, and before you knew we'd
have been having lunch together and making plans to meet up for disco
dancing and all kinds of activities. But no. For one thing, I don't
carry a lighter; and for another, I don't like no skanky bitch that
smell like an ashtray (in my head that was in an Ali G voice. I don't
know why.). I made no move and after a while, on looking away and
looking back, she was gone, leaving me with the thought "what just
happened there?" As you do.
It occurred to me that she might have been a prostitute. I have no
experience of such matters, but she definitely wasn't the poor,
desperate drug-addict kind of prostitute, and I don't think the high
class type (and boy, was she class) solicit in the streets. It's either
a mystery or my heat-addled imagination. I went home and had some lunch.
While out, I'd picked up a free glossy magazine, published by the
council. Lucca citizens pay well below the national average for council
services, and the lowest in Tuscany. It says. Anyway, briefly scanning
through it, I was reminded of something I'd seen before coming to Italy
(on Facebook, of all places). There's a series of exhibitions under the
banner "Images of Sound", including one called "Love Me Fender" (SWTDT?)
After siesta, I set off to find it, in the Villa Guinigi. The Guinigi
family were the big shots in Lucca for a critical period of its
history, and the villa was originally their country retreat, but was
enveloped by the new walls in the 16th century. It's now a museum. I
paid the modest 4 euro entrance fee (it seemed cheap after Florence)
and followed the approved route (there was a lady hovering to ensure
that I did) which progressed chronologically.
Neolithic to Roman, by way of Etruscans; and then Longobards taking us
up to a round 1000 AD. That was all quite interesting. The Roman work
was very stern and functional, contrasting with a less sophisticated
but more playful and joyful artistic expression of the "barbarian"
Longobards. They were Christian, of course, so much of the sculpture
was churchy, but I still liked it.
It was after that time that the frescos and paintings and crucifixes
started to appear, and after a while I was desperate for any kind of
secular art. I was overcome by rancid piety, all the way from 1300 to
1750. Saint Sebastian was a popular subject, full of arrows, and often
accompanied by San Rocco, whom I hadn't met before, but who seemed,
less seriously, to suffer from an ulcer on his thigh.
I left the building somewhat irritated. It had been like television
with all adverts and no programmes. I did remember that all the
bastions around the walls are named after saints, and many of the
streets. There's a piazza for Napoleon and other streets are named
after royalty, suggesting an overall right-wing theme. There is a Corso
Garibaldi, but even he was fighting for a monarchy, albeit a relatively
democratic one. (The Kingdom of Piedmont eventually absorbed all of
Italy and became the Kingdom of Italy thanks to Garibaldi and his
followers.)
I looked at the building plan on the leaflet they'd given me and saw
the room labelled "Temporary Exhibitions", and guessed that it had to
be the Fender place. A nice lady intercepted me and led me into it,
handing me a fat magazine celebrating the exhibitions. Not huge, but a
happy place for a guitar nut. I liked the panda.
Overall, I'd spent a couple
of hours in the museum. I could actually have gone direct into the
Fender room without paying for the rest of it, but in retrospect, I was
happy to have seen the lot. If I'd just gone into the Fender exhibition
I'd have felt I walked right across town for very little.
When I came out, I walked up to the nearest bastion for some shade and
looked at my "Images of Sound" book. There were various exhibitions
around, including "Wonderful Tonight", photos by Pattie Boyd. Clapton
wrote the song about her. She also dated George Harrison and other
musicians. There was a photo history of Guns'n'Roses called "Reckless
Road". I thought I'd give that one a miss.
Photos by and of other rock musicians. Michael Stipe looking like a
prat. Kim Gordon with a pump-action shotgun, looking mean. (Remind me
not to call her "Kimbo-Bimbo" again.) There was one of the Guitarist
from Sleater-Kinney (I always forget who's Sleater and who's Kinney)
and you know what? When I got home and put on some music, the first
track (on random) was 'One Beat' by Sleater-Kinney. Spooky.
Evening time and hopes of directed restaurant seeking were dashed. I
wandered and found nothing promising until I came to an antica osteria.
It was too expensive, but I was hungry. The meal was not bad but the
pretentiousness of the restaurant was borne out by the lack of house
wine. I had to buy an expensive bottle and leave some. Overall, I paid
too much for a mediocre meal. The pill was sugared slightly by the fact
that they were playing 80s pop funk when I arrived ("That's The Way I
Like It" to be precise) but when that ran out after an hour, someone
picked Dean Martin, which I could live with, but just before I left,
some Italian singer was selected, which would have driven me away if I
wasn't already going.
Thursday 22-Jul
I'd meant to get up early to get in a trip to the supermercato before
it got too hot, but missed that target. Instead, I went up to
Piattiforma San Frediano with my free news sheet which I'd picked up at
the station in Florence. I can read enough to get the basics of the
articles, but it's hard work for me. I took my little dictionary in
case I needed help, and indeed, I learned two new words in Italian:
nightmare -- American oil leak -- and avalanche -- in this case an
avalanche of money, which was what Exxon was putting in to the climate
change denial industry. ("l'incubo" and "valanga")
When I got the apartment, I received no instructions on disposal of
garbage, leading me to the solution adopted the world over: see what
the neighbours do. Central Lucca's streets are too narrow for the usual
large roll-top bins that are used by councils everywhere else for
communal collection, and I didn't know what the process was instead. I
noticed rubbish left out in bags one day shortly after I arrived and
noted that for a potential "bin day", but gradually I became almost
sure that every day was bin day. Rubbish left by the litter bin in the
street outside definitely seemed to be taken by the rubbish fairies
within 48 hours, if not 24.
I had seen the waste disposal operatives at work elsewhere in the city.
Of course, a full-sized bin lorry can't be
used: they have miniature electric ones. It's still hard work, and
probably sometimes unpleasant in the heat. Most of the bin men just
wore their high-visibility waistcoats over a bare chest, and I saw a
lady bin man in a bikini top, shorts and work boots, with the waistcoat
unfastened. In spite of my general antipathy to shorts on women, it was
a kind of sexy look.
On another occasion, I saw the more downmarket version of that with a
girl driving the truck with waistcoat buttoned, but just her bra
underneath. Immediately afterwards, two more female-piloted garbage
trucklets passed me with the ladies in smart blue shirts under the
high-vis, which I assume is the official uniform.
I did buy rubbish bags on a supermarket visit, but because of my frugal
lifestyle (if you can't eat it, don't buy it) (except rubbish bags) it
was over a week before I needed to worry about disposal anyway.
On this occasion, having missed the early shift for grocery shopping, I
bought two filled panini from a shop and brought them home for lunch.
I dozed a siesta and wasn't out again until five. I thought I'd go and
see the Palazzo Pfanner. The gardens are visible from the city walls
near home and I was intrigued to see more. I assumed that the place
would be open until seven-thirty, which is the norm for ancient
monuments etc., but for the palazzo it's six o'clock, meaning that I
had less than an hour, but got a reduced entry fee. One hour was more
than enough for the gardens, but not for the house (and there's an
additional ticket to buy). I settled for the gardens. Statues,
fountain, flowers, lemon bushes. I stole a ripe lemon.
I took a short break on nearby San Frediano platform waiting for the
sun to go down a little more, then went on the postponed supermarket
trip. Inside, I had a minor panic attack when I realised that I had an
unauthorised lemon in my bag. What if they thought I stole it from
them? I tried to remember the Italian for "wild" as in plants. (I did,
it's "involuntario".) Wild lemons.
After my home-cooked dinner, it was after nine and I went to Piazza
Napoleone, where the finalists from a battle-of-the-bands competition
were to play the big festival stage. It was billed as "Summer Giovani"
or Summer Youth, but some of those guys looked about thirty. There was
a really good punk-folk outfit (with an accordion) which I liked,
although I didn't catch their name; and finally "Venus in Furs", a
loud, grungy-metal band that I enjoyed as well. They tossed out CDs and
I got one, although I had no means of playing it in the apartment.
Once everyone had performed, I waited for the result, but no, first
there were speeches. And then more speeches. And then "I'd like to ask
this member of the committee to say a few words." and so on. I got
bored and came home, so I never found out the victors. No matter. BotBs
suck anyway.
Actually, I haven't mentioned that this one had comperes. The usual
combination of portly middle-aged man with an artificial tan and a
comb-over, plus very thin young woman in a sprayed-on dress. Troupers,
both of them, able to prattle on while band changeovers went on behind
them. There were two drum kits set up so that drummers could change
smoothly, but as always, guitarists were last to be ready, faffing
about with pedals and connections for ages (while bassplayers
stood waiting). I don't know what it is with guitarists.
Friday 23-Jul
It was the first morning that I'd felt at a loose end, unsure what to
do. I had slept well enough but couldn't really get my act together to
get up and get out. Eventually, I emerged into daylight and proceeded
at random in a general Southerly direction to Via San Paolino, which
becoming Via Roma and Via Santa Croce, forms a central East-West axis
of the city. Going West to the gate at Piazzale Verdi, I noticed the
tourist office where I'd got my free maps.
Their blurb says "WiFi Zone", but there was no indication if it was
free or paid. There was an ordinary Internet point inside the building,
with the usual line of decrepit PCs. I assumed that it was paid.
There's actually a surprising shortage of Internet cafes and the like
in Lucca. The other main tourist office at the opposite end of town had
one, and I think I saw just two others. In Florence, they're everywhere.
That reminds me of another difference between Florence and Lucca.
Florence is stuffed with stalls selling cheap tat. When I was there I
decided that I needed a new pair of cheap sunglasses because my nice
red ones were scratched (Tesco: £3.45) and found many at €5 on the
stalls. There was nothing similar in Lucca, whether through being
behind the times, or, more likely, deliberate control. There was a shop
at the end of my street that sold €300 sunglasses.
That aside, Internet had been an issue for me. My apartment had 3 of
the neighbours' wireless networks detectable, all encrypted. Not like
the old days. In theory, I might have been able to crack the
encryption, given that I could leave the laptop running for days at it
if necessary, but then I realised that I'd forgotten to load the
laptop's own encryption module, so I couldn't use the key even if I
found it. Massive fail.
I was reduced to using my phone, at an astounding £3 PER MEGABYTE from
O2. Compare that to 35p a minute for a voice call. (60 seconds times
voice at 64 megabits is equivalent to half a megabyte, so that's 70p
vs. £3. The EU needs to look into that.)
I couldn't exactly "war drive" around the streets of Lucca looking for
an open wifi network, which was why I was interested in the possibility
of loitering outside the tourist office, perhaps after they were closed.
That reconnoitre accomplished, I wandered a little more. Clouds had
appeared, quite dark ones, occasionally blocking the sun, but not
noticeable reducing the heat. Maybe it had been the pending change in
weather that had affected my mood earlier. I went for lunch at a
typical outside cafe, not far from home, and then retired for a siesta.
The afternoon expedition was also in the form of a reconnaisance. I had
noticed a couple of self-service laundrettes and wanted to find the
handiest. The one I remembered and located was clean and modern, but
quite a long walk away, part of that walk being down the very posh Via
Fillungo, where the bags carried are by Gucci, D&G and Chanel, and
probably rarely contain laundry.
Still, I went in and read the instructions (in four languages) and
mentally made a note of where the place was. Not too far from the
church of San Frediano, which had had a wedding imminent the first time
I went in. I took the opportunity for a quieter visit and took some
photos. The city's favourite saint, Santa Zita, is there. Dead, but on
display.
After dinner at home, I went out again, with the laptop in a guerilla
Internet mission. My route took me past a nearer laundrette, and
slightly cheaper, making that the likely candidate when needed. At
Piazzale Verdi, where the tourist centre had just closed, I sat down on
a bench, started up the laptop, and bingo! Eight open wifi networks.
My wifi-sniffer program actually crashed with a surfeit of data, but I
got it going again and tried to connect to one of the networks. It
worked. I could see that the computer had been allocated an IP address
on the network, and had set up its DNS and routes. Except, it DIDN'T
work. I couldn't browse the Internet, or even contact the DNS servers
set by the wifi network itself. (It occurred to me later that the wifi
equipment might have been left switched on, but the Internet connection
unplugged or switched off, because actually, I had set everything up
correctly.)
Basically, the problem was that I hadn't ever practised connecting to a
public network before, and thus had no idea what to poke to get it
working. I spent about forty minutes before giving up and packing up.
I dropped the laptop back at the apartment and went for a drink. Old
Simply Red had started performing in the Piazza, which I had to detour
round, but the sound was good and the performance was clear for a fair
distance around. He can sing, certainly, but there's something lacking:
emotion, or passion, or soul. The date was part of a tour advertised as
the final one. Let's hope so.
At the Irish Pub, excitingly, a band's gear
was set up. A5 flyers taped to the pillars promised a "Hell Party" with
live rock, compulsory head-banging, and free drinks for ladies in
costume. In the event, there were none of the latter as far as I could
tell, but a stocky, middle-aged guy with long blonde hair did come in.
Wearing a leather miniskirt. Nobody stared or reacted. He wasn't
particularly effeminate or anything. Just wearing a skirt.
The band didn't start to play until eleven-thirty. Actually it turned
out to be not so much a band as a rotating musical collective. Four
guitarists, three bassplayers and two drummers swapped places and
various singers took the lead. The musical fare was covers of the
heavier end of classic rock, with AC/DC, Black Sabbath, ZZ Top and so
on. They were all pretty good. (You know, apart from the ludicrously
bad rhyme in the first and second lines, Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" is
a really good song.)
Amusingly, they featured the Black Crowes' "Remedy", and a version of
"Baba O'Riley" by the Who, as arranged by Mr. Big: two songs that I
perform when at home. I really enjoyed the set as the evening
progressed. Singing and lead guitar solos took place from the tops of
tables, and the top of the bar; and there were general rock'n'roll
theatricals and posing. One of the bassplayers was the hairy barman I'd
seen on my first visit, (but the pretty barmaid wasn't there).
Coming up on two in the morning, the current line-up launched into an
extended version of AC/DC's "Long Way To The Top" as in the outro of
"School of Rock". Band members were introduced and applauded, and I
thought that it was going to be the final number. But no, one more
tune: Neil Young's "Keep On Rocking In The Free World", whose opening
riff still makes the hairs on my neck stand on end. This song went on
for more than ten minutes, with players swapping places and
instruments, until finally, with the hairy barman on drums and at least
one guitar string broken, they found a place to land and played the
final crash. Ears buzzing and throat sore from singing along, I made my
contented way home.
Saturday 24-Jul
This was the first day that I didn't go out in the morning at all, due
to my... exertions of the night before. Following a healthy salad
lunch, combined with a slightly less healthy glass of chilled white
wine, I did make it to the outdoors, quite early in the afternoon,
before the heat had abated much.
The air seemed to be clearer and the light harder. The mountains which
surround Lucca seemed sharper. (On the day I came home on the train
from Florence, the sun was getting low towards the westward mountains,
the ones made of marble, and layers of haze separated the ranges into a
receding series of silhouettes, just like a Chinese painting.)
The previous Saturday, there had been a market composed of van and
trailer stalls near the Eastern gate, the Porta Elisa, and I headed
around the walls in that direction. Slowly in the hot heat. At San
Pietro bastion, I stopped in the shade to cool down. Across the road
from me was a girl in what I thought at first were black stockings -- I
could see the stocking tops (and points North) because of the way she
was sitting -- but then I realised that they were leopard-print
FOOTLESS stockings, something I've never encountered before. Curious.
I've never worn stockings, but I'm guessing that they aren't entirely
optimal for hot weather, footless or not.
I
carried on and by the end had completed a half-cirumnavigation of the
walls, then cut North into the interior. At the festival site in Piazza
Napoleone, arrays of seats had been laid out for what I remembered was
the penultimate concert, a free one by "Karima". It's pretty much a
rule that an Italian artiste with no surname and whose publicity shots
show a smouldering look in ultra-real, retouched sharpness is going to
perform sentimental ballads in a bland pop style. I wouldn't be going
to see Karima.
On the return trip, I went to the foccacia shop and bought some big
lumps to be used for dinner. I'd forgotten once where I'd seen the big
loaves in the window, but rediscovered it a couple of days later. What
I hadn't realised was that the shop, long and thin on the inside,
actually has a door at each end, and one of them (no room for a shop
window at that end) exits into Piazza Antifeatro.
I like the Piazza, very much unique to Lucca. The ring of buildings has
the ruins of the Roman amphitheatre as its foundations, and the central
part was cleared and levelled as a town landscaping project, in the
1800s, I think it was. Which reminds me: there isn't much that's "new"
in the old part of the city inside the walls. There's almost nothing
that looks later than about the mid-1800s, perhaps reflecting the start
of preservation laws. (Later note:I was reading on some town history
and realised I was wrong about preservation. What really happened was
that Lucca was absorbed into the Duchy of Florence in 1847, the bigwigs
moved out, and investment stopped. I was spot on about the time period
though.)
Most of the building stock though is much older than that, typically
"town houses" of various levels of pretention dating to 1300s to 1600s,
now filled with individual apartments. The exteriors are in various
states of repair, from freshly rendered to falling to pieces. I'd seen
a few in real states of decay, and some that appeared empty and seemed
never to have been modernised, because the ground floor windows were
unglazed, with only the big antique iron grilles on them. Ground floor
rooms weren't lived in. They were for storage, or in grander palazzo
houses, open loggias that had free access to the public to mingle and
do business. Changing attitudes caused these to be walled in, but there
is one survival, next to San Michele church, the Pallazo Pretorio.
My own apartment was a ground floor room in a four-storey town house,
with a high vaulted ceiling and one massive, street-facing window, with
a huge wrought-iron grille over it. Hard to know what it might have
been for originally. Stabling mules, I'm going to say. The near-by area
of my abode seemed to have been predominantly the quarter of the
medieval lower-middle classes: rich enough to have a whole house, but
nothing too fancy. (But there are some big, glowering palazzos not too
far away, and there is a house further down that same street with a
huge stone archway leading into a substantial inner courtyard and
gardens.)
Before making dinner with my freshly captured foccacia, I had a
mission. The owner of my apartment hadn't been in touch about fresh
bedding and towels, and I decided, the hell with it, I'll do it myself.
I packed the linen and my own sweaty clothes into two plastic sacks and
walked round to the laundrette, or lavanderia automatica. It was empty,
which was good, because I could take my time and not feel I was looking
awakward. The instructions were in Italian, English and French, and by
cross-checking all three, I was confident enough to put my load all in
the machine and start it up. I selected a medium-cool wash (a step
missing in the English and French) which would take only 30 minutes.
As you might expect, there was reading material sitting about, but in
this instance, it consisted of motor-cycling magazines (including a
glossy "Ducati World" which I considered thieving) and two ladies'
underwear catalogue booklets. I imagine that the place is mostly used
by women. Perhaps they like motorbikes. A sign on the wall gave an
emergency phone number for "Stefano", presumably the biking owner.
After the cycle finished, I had to dump the stuff in a basket and take
it over to the dryer. The apartment's bath towel was a new, yellow one
and of everything in the pile, yes, whites and all, only the
pillowcases seemed to have taken up a little of its colour. Honestly,
it was hardly noticeable unless you held them against the white sheets.
Oh well, not to worry. They can use a shot of bleach, I thought.
Dinner worked well, but I was overambitious in the quantity of foccacia
sandwiches, meaning that one large one was left for lunch the following
day. Manfully resisting the urge to go and hear Karima, I settled down
with a glass or two of wine for a relaxing evening at home. My first,
really.
Sunday 25-Jul
I was up and out for the usual morning constitutional. Cutting through
the alleys, I passed my nearest church, Santa Maria Corteorlandini, and
could hear the singing coming through the open door. I intend to visit,
but not on a Sunday. It's an interesting little church. The facade is a
baroque one from the eighteenth century (not my favourite style), as is
the interior, but the structure is actually very ancient. The name
"Corteorlandini" is thought to have been "Corte Rolandinga", the
courtyard of Rolandinga, a Lombard name. The North side of the church
has a unique pair of medieval loggias, the sort of thing you'd see on a
palazzo, not a church.
Another reason to visit is that they have a Black Madonna, a copy of
the Loreto one. Ancient Black Madonnas occur all over the South of
Europe, and the Christian theological explanations are confused and
unconvincing. I much prefer the theory that they are representations of
a pre-Christian Goddess, a version of Kali, Goddess of destruction and
renewal. There's a place in the South of France where the Roma carry a
Black Madonna into the sea on a flower-decked platform, exactly as in a
Hindu puja.
The atmosphere was still haze-free and clear, and the temperature was
maybe a little lower than in the previous week. I walked clockwise
along the walls from San Frediano to the next bastion, San Martino, one
of the ones with a gun platform in the centre. I hadn't previously
looked around it, and when I did, I could see that the chambers and
courts below it showed signs of being accessible. Well, graffiti and
litter, basically. I'd thought that the bastion next to the botanical
gardens, San Regolo, might be the only one whose underground works
could be visited, but I was wrong.
At San Martino, there is one of the relatively modern (1800s)
pedestrian gates, but unlike the one at, say, San Frediano which I
would walk through to the supermarket; San Martino's isn't just a
tunnel through the walls, it goes via the underworks of the bastion,
which form a network of high, vaulted rooms. Although made of brick and
constructed in the decades around 1600, the chambers have a medieval
ambience. They even reminded me of the Knights Templar underground
"stables" in Jerusalem. There WAS a lot of graffiti and the sort of
litter that suggests late night lowlife activities, but in the day the
place was deserted.
Lucca is kept very tidy generally. Inevitably, given the number of
transient tourists, there's a certain amount of litter but the city's
workers do a good job of dealing with it. And as I eventually deduced,
domestic rubbish is collected from the streets EVERY morning. Well,
maybe not Sunday. One thing that I found particularly striking was that
the old water channel on the East side of the city which opens up into
a shallow canal about two metres wide near the botanic gardens has fish
in it. The water is clear and healthy-looking and there are black fish
about the size of Coke bottles or larger.
At the Porta dei Borghi (a gate in the medieval walls, now left
stranded) I picked up one piece of litter. It was a bike lock. It had a
combination lock and I assumed that it had been discarded because it
was broken and wouldn't lock any more. At home, I'm always fiddling and
fixing stuff (even if it's not broken) and I thought poking at the lock
and probably failing to fix it would amuse me for a while. I put it in
my bag and took a stroll down Via Fillungo with its expensive shops
(shoe shops especially: a pair of men's yachting moccasins? Certainly
Sir, that will be €300.) And home for lunch.
I looked at the lock I'd wombled and found that since it was open, it
was easy to set the three-pin combination, because you could see the
locking mechanism working inside. It was 761. But then I noticed that
the first pin on the other half of the mechanism was broken off,
meaning that ?61 would work, with any number on the first setting. In
theory, just one hundred trials would get the combination open;
actually 61 if you started at 000 and went systematically to 061. So
that did indeed keep me amused for a few minutes. I still didn't know
if it had been lost or thrown away because of its flaw.
In the later afternoon, I went out again and it was quite a lot cooler
than previously, probably below 30 degrees. I think if it had been more
like that, the earlier part of my holiday might have been very
different with more excursions. I simply took in the ambience though
and returned in a couple of hours to cook dinner. I wasn't sure whether
it was a risotto arrabbiato or a biryani, but it was very tasty with a
good hot spice content. ("arrabbiato" for a hot sauce literally means
"rabid". I like that.)
Monday 26-Jul
Don't you
just hate Monday mornings? The weekend over, and five days of drudgery
ahead. Well, mine was nothing like that. I did have a chore to do,
which was to go to the supermarket. I'd run out of two essentials,
croissants for breakfast and wine for dinner, and those were the only
two things I could think of to put on my shopping list. Somehow,
though, I managed to collect enough varied items to fill both of my
canvas bags.
When I left the apartment, there was quite a lot of cloud in the sky --
almost enough to call it "overcast" -- and it was quite cool,
relatively speaking. But on the way back the cloud was starting to
clear away and the sun was shining through.
One of my impulse buys was a box of spiral incense sticks (only 94c),
claiming to repel mosquitoes (even the zanzari tigri, the tiger
mosquitoes which are moving North because of climate change). The
incense spirals are made of a clay-like material and come in an
interleaved pair about the size of a CD which you have to separate.
There's a little metal stand and you set the spiral horizontal on it
and light one end.
So I had to try it. There was a serious intent. I'd initially been
reluctant to leave the window open at night for fear of admitting
biting insects, and thought I might sleep easier with some repellent
going. I lit the incense and put it on a saucer on the window sill. A
mosquito flew in almost immediately, right past the stream of smoke. Oh
well. At least it was geranium-scented. (The smoke, not the mosquito.)
It seemed to be burning very slowly too, causing me to go and get the
box to see if there was a length of time given. Six hours.
And also, not in any way prominent, the advice not to burn the stuff
indoors. Only OK in the garden, while camping, on a boat, during a
picnic etc.
After lunch, I went out, leaving the satanic incense burning on the
bedroom mezzanine, so that if there actually was any repellent effect,
it might protect me in the night. I went up past the church of SM
Corteorlandini, but both doors were firmly shut. I was still determined
to get in, but it would have to be another time.
I wandered around at random, and found I was near the Torre Guiningi,
the famous one with trees on the top. I'd been up it many years before,
but that was no reason to miss out this time. The weather having
moderated, it wouldn't be uncomfortably hot climbing it either. There
are great views in all directions, shaded by the trees (which I thought
were supposed to be oaks, but the leaves were't oak-shaped). There was
a steady stream of tourists up and down, but with little to do at the
top other than look out each side and take photographs, the quick
throughput meant that it didn't get crowded.
The first half of the tower features wide stone steps, perhaps
original, but then a relatively modern set of steel scaffolding stairs
takes over. That meant that there was a big void in the middle with the
stairs going round the sides, strongly reminding me of the Escher
engraving 'Relativity'. I took some photos on the way down to try to
capture the effect.
I came back via the Piazza Antefeatro, which can be made out from the
top of the tower, although you don't get to see the circular outline of
it. When in Florence, I'd been struck by the huge amount of tourist tat
on sale from stalls everywhere, and noticed that there was nothing
comparable in Lucca. Two or three stalls in total, in different
locations. But the Piazza Antefeatro is the place in Lucca to go if you
want to buy your souveniers. There must be a half-dozen or more of that
kind of shop: calendars, t-shirts, fridge-magnets, baseball caps,
ceramics. A couple of them do feature some less generic, more crafted
items that probably wweren't made in China. I don't usually bring back
gifts from holiday (which is why you didn't get anything) but I did
have a quick browse, thinking that I might bring something back for my
parents, to thank them for house and cat sitting. I didn't buy anything
though.
I'd decided that this was going to be the day I would cycle the walls,
but I did have to go back to the apartment to change into less smart
trousers which I didn't mind getting bicycle chain grease on. Having
done that, it was after six, in fact, it was almost half-past when I
got to the bike rental desk and found that the latest return time was
seven. Far earlier than I expected. It would have to be postponed. (I
could easily have made it round in half-an-hour, but I didn't want to
be on a time budget.)
On the spur of the moment, I decided to walk it instead. It only took
an hour, in a clockwise direction because I'd already walked one
segment in that direction to get to the bike place. The temperature was
comfortable. It was with a sense of achievement that I returned for
dinner.
I was cooking at home again. The initial idea of eating out every other
night hadn't worked out because of the need to use up fresh food before
it became suspect. But when you're not in your own kitchen, you don't
have the large number of extra ingredients like spices or sauces, or
that tin of canelli beans that you never used. That had meant that all
the cooking was pretty basic, and not really recipe-driven, more "what
have I got tonight?" Some meals, nevertheless, have been very tasty,
and everything has been at least edible. Tuscan wine is a good
accompaniment to all cooking.
Tuesday 27-Jul
The postponed
bike ride was set for after lunch. Morning was spent idling. The sky
was intermittently overcast and it was relatively cool, probably under
thirty degrees. That meant that I was prepared to try cycling as early
as two-thirty in the afternoon. A few days previously and that would
have been out of the question.
Off I went to the bike rental place. There are a number of them in
town, of course, but I'd picked Cicli Bizzarri purely on the name.
Well, also because it was quite close to home, at Piazza Santa Maria,
about one o'clock on the Lucca clockface. The ramp up onto the wall-top
road is quite gentle at that location. Its Westward direction suggested
a counter-clockwise circumnavigation, and I went along.
I didn't really count off the bastions or anything, just observed the
townscapes as I gently rode round. With the sun still quite high, there
were many stretches where the shadows of the trees didn't shade the
road, and it was hot, but on the South side of the city that was
moderated by a nice breeze.
At my modest speed, it took about twenty minutes to get back round to
Porta Santa Maria. The rental period was an hour (for €2.50) giving me
more time to fill. I turned round and started circling the walls
clockwise. Different views. Halfway round though, I had an idea. I'd
seen an aqueduct marked on the map, South of town, on the far side of
the railway tracks. There was a footbridge shown too.
Well, I'm simplifying. The aqueduct was shown on one map, which was at
home, and the footbridge was shown on the map I had with me, but the
aqueduct wasn't. Anyway, I cycled out of town, became a pedestrian to
get across the main road at the crossing, and then again to take the
bike up the steps of the railway footbridge and down the other side.
At the other side, I tried to start riding again, but found that the
bumping up and down steps had caused the chain to come off. It took
several minutes to get it in place, but fortunately there wasn't much
black grease on it and my hands became only moderately dirty. I set off
in what I thought might be the location of the aqueduct, but I didn't
find it. I did get to cycle round a bit of modern Lucca outside the
walls though, and that was interesting in itself.
At a junction, I saw another cyclist turn into a road marked as a dead
end, pointing towards the city centre. Guessing that he knew where he
was going, I followed, and indeed, there was a bike and pedestrian
underpass, under both the railway and the main road. That wasn't on any
of my maps.
Coming into the city through a pedestrian gate at about the seven
o'clock position, I realised that I'd be cutting it fine to ride round
the walls to return the bike in less than an hour. I elected to cycle
through the old town alleys to go there directly instead. That West end
of town isn't really a tourist-infested zone, meaning that the trip was
not complicated by having to avoid gormless pedestrians.
I handed back the bike and paid the very reasonable charge (they take
your passport or driving licence as security, allowing the bill to be
calculated and paid at the end). Then I took a stroll down the main
high-class shopping street, Via Fillungi. Some people do cycle down it,
probably locals, but idiot tourists are always stepping into their way.
At the Piazza Napoleone, the roadies were setting up and sound-checking
for Placebo. There was a ridiculous number of guitars and basses on the
stage, about thirty in total. The use of multiple guitars during a show
has always seemed to me to be pretentious bullshit (maybe two, or at
most three, for different sounds or tunings) but that was really
laughable. Or maybe there were eight support bands playing that I
hadn't heard about.
At that stage, (SWIDT?), several hours ahead of the gig, I only saw a
few obvious Placebo fans in uniform. I thought I'd probably see more if
I was around after the show. Obviously, during the show, they'd be
inside and I wouldn't. It became overcast again, and I heard the sound
of thunder, and a few drops of rain fell, but rain didn't get going.
The forecast had been that the first rain might be on Friday, and I
hoped it wouldn't arrive in advance and spoil the gig for the fans.
I went out in the early evening, intending to have dinner out, but I
went for a walk around the main areas of town first. At around
eight-thirty I could hear that Placebo had already started. Loud.
I settled on an outdoor restaurant in Piazza Antefero. There are about
six, all fairly touristy, and the one I picked had very slow service,
but the food was good. As I sat there, facing the piazza, it gradually
got dark, and lights came on in some of the buildings around the
perimeter. It was the fist time that it had occurred to me that people
might live in those medieval buildings. On the ground floor, facing the
square, it's all shops, bars and restaurants, but obviously some of the
space above is residential.
Then I thought, "Where are their front doors?", but realised
immediately that they must be on the outer-facing walls. That's where
some of the Roman stonework and brickwork of the amphitheatre is still
visible. I'd like to live in a house that was partly Roman.
I finished my meal and walked back down to towards the outdoor gig, to
one of the alleys where you could get a glimpse of one of the big
screens, although not the stage. Placebo were still playing and it was
ten-thirty, so credit to them for giving their fans value for money. I
stayed to listen to the last few songs, and then off they went, leaving
a loop of Philip Glass playing (the piano intro from the duet in
Satragrahiya). At that point, the barriers were opened, and people
rushed in. I followed, hoping for an encore, but no, that was it.
I walked home with the sounds of Philip Glass in my ears.