My name is Lucca ...

... I live on the second floor. It was actually Luka in this song of Suzanne Vega but we went to Lucca yesterday, as in Lucca, Tuscany, 1 hour and 22 minutes by train from Firenze main station also known as Firenze Santa Maria Novella. To my big surprise - I guess I will have to revisit some of my prejudice against the Italians - the train was on time and it was clean and the whole process of buying tickets and all was pretty efficient. I have been to Lucca before - but I don't care to divulge how many eons ago it was - but I vaguely remembered it as a charming little place with none of the grandeur of Firenze but nice in a kind of intact, wholesome way. And it was. We reached the Centro Citta (city center) after a 3 minute walk from the train station. He whole "centro storico" is surrounded by an intact city wall and has about one church per inhabitant. Truly, there is a church at every corner, sometimes two. I tried to google the exact number but couldn't come up with anything definite quickly. However, I overheard some tourists saying there were 80 churches in Lucca. That strikes me as a bit high but it can't be much less.

Anyway, Lucca is charming with its little narrow streets and piazzas, its many churches and statutes. It is touristy but compared to Florence its an oasis of tranquility and untampered with Italian-ness. One actually hears the Italian language spoken on most corners and in most cafes and bars and although there is the occassional group of bored adolescences eating gelati and listening to Italian rock on a school trip it has the feel of a nice small town that probably really is fun before 10 am and after 5 pm when all the day tourists - such as us - are gone for the day and the locals come out. I enjoyed walking around the town, standing around on the piazzas and having a panini on a park bench. To my great disappointment the candles in the Duomo were fake as well. I had so hoped that after the disappointing experience in Andalucia - candle-wise I mean - Tuscany would turn out more old-fashioned with real wax candles - but no. In the interest of saftety and cleanliness - as stated on a print-out - they were replaced by electric ones. Max, though, dicovered that the electric ones are even more fun than the real ones as one just has to screw them into a socket to make them light up. Before I could say "Don't" he had already screwed in 5 Euros worth of electrical candles. Fortunately the payment is based on an honor system and, I have to admit, seem to not have any honor left in my body. I figured that his intentions where pure and that I could really not be hold responsible for his playful acts and wouldn't have to pay up. And so the Virgin Mary got an additional dozen or so candles and looked much brighter and happier for it. I had to drag Max out and pry five more candles out of his sweaty palms - he just didn't understand why he couldn't do this for the rest of the day.

Saturday seems to be antique market day in Lucca and normally my heart would skip a beat in joy over that news. However, an antique market is definitely a questionable delight with Mr. Distructive around. One forever walks by frail vintage itmes that cost an arm and a leg with Mr.Distructive pointing at them, touching them and wanting to lift them up to show them to you: "Mama, look, a glass chandelier from the 15th century, it breaks real easily. Will you catch?" So there was no leisurely stroll more like a hurried run across the market with us trying all sorts of distractions to get him away from the chandeliers and the 84 piece plate sets before they become 83 piece plate sets.

For a second I had the idea that this could be a nice place to live - big enough to have museums and some cultural activities going on but small enough not to be too noisy and exhausting. Then my eyes fell on a real estate broker's office (they do exist, many of them but no comparison to Andalucia) and I realized that a nice apartment in the center, about as big as our house in Sunnyvale would cost about as much as our house and decided that maybe Lucca wasn't it after all for the time being. Maybe they'll have a real estate crisis too. Stands to reason after overpriced real estate seems to be coming crashing down around the globe.

We took the train back to Firenze in the early afternoon - the man needs his nap - and again the train was on time (more or less but 5 minutes delay is excusable, even for a German). Gliding through the landscape at around 100 km/h was actually very pleasant.It is fast enough to have the feeling that one gets places reasonably fast but slow enough to see things and keep your son entertained with things like "who sees a crane/truck/river whatever?" and even watch people a bit during the stops. My inadequate outfit become abundantly clear to me again - I must have been the only woman not wearing boots and mascara. Many guys were in suits or at least sports jackets. However, my recent attempt to buy myself a more suitable outfit at Zara failed miserably: Somehow the coats are cut for women with shorter upper bodies - never knew mine was so long - and so all the belts of the coats (and they all have belts these days) were sitting sort of between my waist and my breast - not a very stylish look.

Today we walked to the famous Piazza Michelangelo where another reproduction stands. the piazza is located on the other side of the river Arno and has a nice view of all the famous sites of the old town: the Duomo, Ponte Vecchio, Palazzo Vecchio, the synagoge, Santa Croce and and a bunch of "minor" churches. I had ebviosned a park bench and a leisurely break with crackers and juice, Max chasing pigeons and Uli and I sitting there enjoyng the sun but I should have known better: the scene up there reminded me a lot of Coit Tower: tourists hauled up by the bus load, people selling t-shirts, sun glasses and leather bags, a Japanse wedding party with videographer completed the picture. The view is truely amazing but how much fun is it to take a picture that another 100,000 people are taking - just today. We need to come again and come earlier. I bet at 9 am few of the tourists venture there and maybe I can find an interesting perspective or two.

I am slowly starting to get the hang of Florence. It took a while and being in a big city with Max is definitely more challenging than village live in Frigiliana. One has to be careful every steps of the way: cars on the street and dog shit on the sidewalks but one gets used to dealing with it just as we got used to the trains running by our apartment all hours of the night when I at first thought that I will not ever sleep through the night.

And here is Max doing what he does best: chasing pigeons