Lucca, a very old city about an hour’s drive from Florence, turns out to be a charming place. We planned for our visit to be little more than an overnight after taking three flights to get from Grand Rapids, Mi to this most charming part of Italy. Our first real destination is Cinque Terra on the gorgeous coast of the Med.

What a delightful surprise I found Lucca to be. Most notable and quite astounding is the enormous wall built to surround and protect the city. Completed in 1550, the wall takes a good hour to walk to complete the loop. The trek is delightful. We joined Moms pushing strollers, elderly Italian women chatting excitedly, folks on bikes and all sorts joggers and walkers.

Strolling the tree lined promenade is most likely a part of most residents’ day as well as essential for anyone visiting the city.

Along the way we could view the towers of churches and important government buildings. Peeking down the narrow zigzagging streets I could see old and young going about daily life, probably oblivious to the picture perfect scenes that stopped me in my tracks to take photos or ooh and ahh.

Endlessly we saw laundry hanging out the windows in colorful profusion, glorious fall color and inviting places to eat.

Inside the wall the streets wind about willy-Nilly with names so long and challenging that we got ourselves twisted about and solidly lost. In fact, after a long relaxed dinner we made a major circle, ended right back at the restaurant when we tried to find our way to our gracious old hotel just outside the city wall. Maybe the lovely wine with dinner along with travel induced fatigue had something to do with the confusion Once settled into our room, sleep was sound and swift.

Note to regular DesignDestinations readers: I am using an IPad to post on this trip. Instead of my normal WordPress software I am attempting to master the WordPress App designed for the IPad. It doesn’t have same capabilities as what I am used to and words, coding and duplicate photos appear mysteriously. Not having the intuitive savvy to understand this stuff I am considerably challenged. Please forgive me while I learn along the way how to make it work.

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