That's Italy
The last few weeks I have decided I really need to start getting my act together so I got around to designing some business cards for my little Vegan Italy venture and looked at getting them printed. After investigating the local print shop which I would have loved to support, but their pricing was way out of my budget I found that I could order on Vistaprint as I had done in Melbourne. Before too long I was getting notifications from UPS that my business cards would be delivered soon, but as it turned out, not to my house but to a pickup location. I thought ok, it will probably be the little tabaccheria right across the road or somewhere in our hood, but NO it was a bus ride away in a place I’d never been to before called San Vito.
I made my appointment for the pickup on the Saturday morning and got myself to the bus station bright and early to catch the E6 bus. I went along all the platforms looking for it, but could not find it anywhere, so I asked the guy at the bus station who waved at the stands across the street, but again it was nowhere to be found. so I made my way back to the information office and spoke to the lady there who spoke English who then told me I had missed the bus and there wasn’t another for an hour. Of course I had missed the bus being sent on a.wild goose chase looking at every single bus stand and still not finding it! I explained that on my phone app I could take another bus the Lam Rosso and she said no that is not possible. I told her I needed to go to Via Peschiatina in San Vito, only 10-15 minute ride away and she kept telling me I needed the bus to Peschia, which is some other town further away. I kept telling her I wasn’t going to Peschia and she kept insisting that indeed I was going to Peschia, and that Via Pesciatina was a long street.
Anyway another lady from the bus station came along, seeing us discussing where I was and wasn’t going , I showed her on my phone exactly the shop with the address in San Vito where I needed to go. She then started yelling at the other lady, telling her off for giving me wrong directions, and what was she thinking and they kept going and going and going and while they were busy arguing I was watching the clock ticking past my pickup time and I was thinking I am now going to miss another bus at this rate, and I think perhaps for the first time in Italy my frustration spilled over just a bit.
They finally stopped arguing and agreed that yes I can take the Lam Rossa and directed me to somewhere near the train station to catch the bus. If I had followed the new instructions from them I would likely still be looking for the place as I write this. Instead I trusted my gut and found the stop inside the gates long before the station, because as it turned out once I was on it, the bus didn’t go anywhere near the train station!!
San Vito was like being in the countryside but not at all far from the wall, and it reminded me of a little Scottish one street village. I asked the butcher where the shop was and he was very helpful and pointed up the road. I got to the street number walked in and it was a coffee bar and a betting shop that was absolutely heaving with people at 10am in the morning buying hundreds of “scratchies” and betting on horses. I asked the man at the bar about the whereabouts of the UPS pickup point, and he said the shop had moved up the road. where I eventually found it. What should have been a 20 minute there and back journey in the cooler early morning ended up taking me about an hour and a half, but I was happy to have my business cards in my now very hot hands. I cut through the commune buildings in Piazza Napoleone on the way home and stumbled upon costumed actors preparing for a Mayflower reenactment later in the afternoon. I kept thinking that they looked absolutely amazing but must be roasting in those costumes. By the time I got back from this latest escapade it was stinking hot, my dress was sticking to me and I went into the bathroom. to wash my hands and splash my face only to catch sight of myself in the mirror. I had clearly been bitten in the eyelid by a mosquito overnight and my left eye was totally swollen and I resembled a female version of dear Quasimodo. I could only laugh my head off as I imagined myself running around all over Lucca, the bus station and and San Vito looking like a total madwoman!! No wonder the lady at the bus station didn't believe I wanted to go to Via Pesciatina, perhaps there is a lunatic asylum in Pescia?
Moving in to our new home we have had to order a few things and get them delivered, however when you type our address into Google Maps it shows an apartment building further down the road which is incorrect. Usually I get a call from a courier asking where are we speaking very fast, and I have to say “accanto ristorante Vegrano” (next to the restaurant) . I then have to hang out of my window, once again like a mad woman waving frantically at them because I can usually see the courier truck just down the road at the wrong building, bloody Google maps! As my lovely new friend Cristina says, “That’s Italy” whenever something funny or quirky happens and indeed it puts a light spin on things for sure, not that I’m complaining, I love it here quirks and all!
Life is full of ups and downs of course, and after the last month or so things are turning towards the up side once more. My lovely friends Beth and Colin whom I was supposed to be travelling in Spain with before I got Covid arrived in Pisa, and so I scooted off on the Pisa bus to meet them. I asked the bus driver to let me know when we got to Pisa Centrale station as I was not sure if it was the last stop on the route. The bus went over hill and dale or mountains should I say, as he drove around hair pin bends with gay abandon. When I got to Pisa, it went all over the place and reached a stop where everybody got off outside a building, so I assumed this must be the last stop Pisa Centrale, only it wasn’t, thanks driver, but luckily only about a 5 minute walk away. Once at the station I could see signs for the Pisa Mover which is the driverless train that takes you to the airport. Normally there is a bus straight from Lucca to the airport but there was some road works or something mysterious going on, no one was quite sure. Anyway, I tried to buy a ticket at the machine in the station for Pisa Airport and although it came up as a choice it kept saying that tickets were unavailable, so I stood in line waiting to speak to someone at the ticket office. I got chatting with a couple in the line, and asked them if they knew about the Pisa Mover and they told me there was no such thing as a shuttle to the airport and that you have to walk to the airport from here, even after I showed them on my phone the Pisa Mover website with pictures of the train and everything they kept insisting it didn't exist. At the counter the lovely young man directed me to platform 13, go to the end and there is a separate track for the Pisa Mover where I can purchase a ticket, in case anyone else is ever looking for it in the future. It. looks like a space shuttle, absolutely pristine inside and after a quick smooth ride I was at the airport, so indeed it does exist unless it is like the Hogwarts Express which you can only catch if you are in the know.
The next week was spent with my friends visiting the gorgeous Cinque Terre, the 5 fishing villages that cling to the cliffs where we ate a pizza with only lemons and cheese. It was SO delicious. On our way back from the Cinque Terre on the train. we missed our connection to Lucca from Viareggio and there was not going to be. another train for an hour, but the lovely lady at the ticket desk said we could take the train to Pisa San Rossore only a few stops away and hop on a Lucca train from there. When we arrived at Pisa San Rossore I almost fell over losing my balance as the train really leaned to one side as we were disembarking. Beth said maybe its because we’re in Pisa everything leans, and we laughed our heads off.
We spent time lolling about Lucca giving our feet a chance to recover after all the walking at Cinque Terre and where the Lucca Summer Festival music festival was just starting. My friends were in a prime spot to hear all the music from the stage as their accommodation near Piazza Napoleone was right there. Funnily they had booked the very same Airbnb that I had stayed in the first time I visited Lucca, and did not realise until they were reading the reviews and came across mine.
We took a day trip to Florence. Unbeknownst to us it was a very auspicious day on the Florentine calendar San Giovanni’s (Saint John’s) day, the patron saint of Florence. As we entered the main area of the city we were met by a fanfare of trumpets and a parade, welcoming us to the city (so we liked to think) and we followed it as it was heading in the direction we were going towards the Uffizi Gallery. We stopped for the most yummy fresh watermelon skewers and giant sandwiches which were easily two meals filled with literally fistfuls of marinated eggplant, tomatoes, bocconcini, and pesto as I watched the man putting them together and we ate them sitting on a wall in the shade. The service in Florence everywhere we went was superb and friendly and the portions gigantic. Ahem.. Lucca with your pea sized scoops of gelato….anyway, I digress. In Florence people were walking around with giant cones and tubs of gelato unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, except maybe in my Coco Joes van back in Melbourne.
The Uffizi was stunning, although I must confess I quite possibly marvelled more at the ceilings than the artwork and it will require many more visits I am sure. We walked across the Ponte Vecchio to find a little church that housed a painting that an artist friend in Lucca said was his absolute favourite painting in the whole world, but unfortunately the church was closed, so we decided to hit a cafe for some refreshments. We were served by a lovely waitress Iris who bopped around to the music and chatted with us and then gave us a giant plate of rock melon sorbet which we hadn’t ordered, but as they were getting ready to close up in a while, this was for us so they could be ready for more fresh gelato in the morning. It was absolutely delicious with teeny bits of rock melon and so refreshing, and while we were using the bathrooms she slipped some bottles of water into our bags. She was so amazing and nice, loving her job and cherishing every customer, and we promised to visit her again. As we headed back across the Ponte Vecchio I commented on how the last time I had walked across it maybe 8 years ago I recall is being full of little artisan makers, with little street stalls but it now only has the Florentine jewellery shops and Philippe Patek. My recollection may have been incorrect, and perhaps there was a street market happening or something that time, but my friend Beth recalled the same thing when she visited many years ago. I just remember it having so much more character rather than that of a shopping strip for the wealthy as it appears now, which is such a shame.
As we made our way towards the train station after a wonderful day in Florence we were met by.another huge parade with drums and loud chanting coming towards us. Some of the people marching were very emotional, I even saw a few people crying. We sat and watched it for ages as it went on and on, different mediaeval costumes, and teams of people in what looked like football colours. It turns out it was for one of the most popular events of this important day, the final of the Calcio Storico Fiorentino, or historic Florentine football, which is a mix of wrestling, rugby and football. I later learned that the Calcio Storico is felt deeply among the people living in the four historical Florentine neighbourhoods, the Blues, the Greens, the Reds and the Whites (respectively from Santa Croce, San Giovanni, Santa Maria Novella and Santo Spirito). All this explains why the guy in the Lush store that I popped in to said what a special day it was for us to be in Florence, when I told him my friends were visiting from Australia, so no the parades were not in our honour;-)
My last stop in Florence was a quick nip to an Indian grocery store not far from the train station, in a cool neighbourhood with all kinds of interesting shops and cuisines in my quest for some paneer which is not available in Lucca, as the owner at my local Sri Lankan grocery told me, there are only about 20 Indian people in Lucca so there isn’t a market for it. Well, now I have yet another excuse to return to Florence! We clocked up the miles walking everywhere in a fun-filled week that’s for sure, and we had such an amazing time together and have wonderful memories and funny stories to look back on, and hopefully more adventures to come, because Italy has a way of just sneaking in to your heart with its beauty, tradition, quirkiness and sometimes chaos, but that’s Italy, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
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