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Three Years Gone By

Let's Go Back To Italy For A Minute - Tips and Links

One of Harper's preschool buddies (and his parents) are going to Italy and asked about our trip. I wrote them the following email and thought it was wildly appropriate to post it all here.

LUCCA

Lucca is fantastic! Walled city with the tops of the walls as the city’s park. 2,5 miles around and everyone is up there riding bikes, running, walking, walking dogs, etc. Beautiful place to stroll. There are bike rental companies everywhere. We made friends with Laurie who owns this place with her husband. She’s American, he’s Italian. She’ll talk your ear off, but if you get there early to rent bikes, tell them we sent you! http://www.latoscananelcuore.it/

Our favorite coffee/breakfast/snack/lunch place was here:

https://www.facebook.com/panikolucca/

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187898-d9715778-Reviews-Paniko-Lucca_Province_of_Lucca_Tuscany.html

(they don’t have a website) Frederika was the young woman there every morning. {We knew we had become regulars/locals when she greeted us with a brusque "'Giorno!"

 

Right around the corner is an AWESOME place called Burro & Alici (Butter and Anchovies) They are a tapas place and opened literally 2 days before we first ate there:

https://www.facebook.com/BurroAlici-187942481705200/

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187898-d12321166-Reviews-Burro_Alici-Lucca_Province_of_Lucca_Tuscany.html

We made friends with the owners: Alessandro and Laura. We went there 3 times with a huge party of people. We LOVE them. If you go, please say Julia and Kurt sent you! (We are friends on Facebook now.)

 

Tons of good Gelato around, but our fave was La Bottega Del Gelato:

https://www.facebook.com/LaBottegaDelGelatoLucca/

 

Things for kids full of energy! The Guinigi Tower with the trees on top: IMG_6356

http://www.comune.lucca.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/131

The Bell tower:

http://www.comune.lucca.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/132

Harper and I climbed both twice! There are a couple of playgrounds for the kids as well (Harper was a regular at the biggest one near the Tourist Info office). If you walk around the walls, you’ll see both as they are next to the walls. 

 

Lucca also has great shopping (if you are into that) and the Anfiteatro which is a good place to stop and eat:

https://www.italyguides.it/en/tuscany/lucca/piazza-dell-anfiteatro

 

OH! And Lucca has a HUGE summer music festival every year with BIG names not sure what your dates are, but maybe you can catch something good:

http://www.summer-festival.com/

The Stones are playing in September…!!

 

Outskirts of Lucca - great family restaurant with fantastic pizza and it’s quite local Bimbotto (about 10-15 minute drive from the walls):

http://bimbotto.it/

Yummy food and super friendly kind people. One of the waitresses hugged me goodbye the first night we were there! 

 

Also nearby (15 minute drive from the walls) is this amazing Villa which you can spend an afternoon in:

http://www.parcovillareale.it/

You can bring in a picnic, your dog, whatever! It costs money to go in and the insides of the buildings are not open (under renovation) but the grounds are just great. If you are looking for a lazy afternoon of just chilling and having the kids run around. So many little gardens and fountains to look at. We were so pleasantly surprised. (I wrote about it in my blog.)

{I did a whole blog post about it here.} 

 

Other things not Lucca related. These are in towns between Lucca and Florence: 

Pinnochio Park:

http://www.pinocchio.it/

It’s wackadoodle, but super fun (wrote about it in my blog)

 

Zoo- nice small zoo with two playground areas inside (Very important for Harper because she does’t care that much about zoos!) They have updated a few of the larger enclosures (Lions and tigers and Lynx and Elephant) so it’s more modern but a few other enclosures are very old and sad, but they clearly have plans. But you can have a giraffe lick you, so that’s fun. 

https://www.zoodipistoia.it/en/

 

We heard about caves you can tour but didn’t go - seemed like a kid friendly, hot day activity! Book ahead.

http://welcometuscany.it/tuscany/lucca/garfagnana/wind_cave.htm

 

IMG_7790Montecatini Terme is a famous resort town with hot springs. We only went there to take the Funiculare up the mountain to Montecatini Alto - the Funiculare ride is SUPER cool, but I’m sure it will be crowded as all get out in Summer. And they have just an old window ticket booth and paper tickets, so I don’t think you can buy ahead!

http://www.montecatini.it/english/montecatini_funicular.html

 

San Gimignano (Smaller walled town full of towers) is a lovely day trip:

http://www.comune.sangimignano.si.it/en/tourism-culture

(Harper and I climbed the big tower there too)

 

 

 

FLORENCE AND ROME AND PISA (OH MY)

Some ProTips for Florence and Rome that we learned on this trip (and in these modern times):

If you want to see the David and if you want to climb the Duomo, you have to book timed tickets ahead of time. Otherwise it will be sold out or minimum you have to wait in line for hours! Same for stuff in Rome too - Colosseum, The Forum, The Baths of Caracalla, St. Peter’s Dome, Sistine Chapel, etc etc. http://www.coopculture.it/

As for where to stay in Rome - City Center. Here where we’ve stayed:

http://www.hotelnavona.com/

Not fancy, but clean and close to everything you want. If you aim your hotel or apartment finder to the areas around Piazza Navona or The Pantheon Or Piazza Di Popolo or the Vatican, you’ll be fine for a couple days in Rome. There are subways, but not a lot, plus it’s kinda fun to walk through all that stuff! Pantheon is my favorite building. 

And Gelato. Just Gelato all day long. It will be hot, so having it 2 or 3 times in a day would not be unreasonable. 

Oh, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa is 1/2 hour drive from Lucca (1.5 from Florence). Once you park at the tower area, it can literally be 1 hour in and out (not sure if you can buy tickets to climb it ahead of time or not). Kids under 8 cannot climb… :-(

The train from Florence to Lucca is 1:20 minutes, by car about 50 minutes. 

So many amazing things to do and see!!

 

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