Day 52: Stage 42: Lucca, 21 km, Cloudy, 19°

Again, Down To Just One Pellegrino!😢

I’m sitting in my B&B in central Lucca sipping a nice Chianti Classico and nibbling on potato chips while listening to the rain come down outside my window. Costanza has left to spend the last week of her vacation with family in the area. We have eaten so well the past week that I decided to go to the grocery store where I picked up a little smoked salmon, some crackers, a little cheese and of course a lovely red wine. The rain is coming down heavily and I don’t really want to spend another night in a restaurant if I don’t have to. So this is a good alternative for tonight. Tomorrow night if the weather is better I’ll plan to venture out in search of a meal. 

Concerning our situation last night, we did eventually get into our accommodation though a little frustrated. Given there was really no one to complain to and the serving staff in the downstairs restaurant took such great care of us, we moved on. The excellent red wine they served might have helped a little with this! 

As you can see, I ate very well! Grilled lamb with a huge plate of fungi (local mushrooms). It was too late to wash our clothes when we were finally let into our rooms, so that we could be sure they were dry for this morning. I’ve just finished washed about everything I can. Even my walking shorts have had their second bath in about two months! They were so encrusted with salt that I just about couldn’t fold them anymore! The belt on my pack is behaving in much the same way as well.

The restaurant had an amazing collection of wines including this collection of Chianti Classico wines from the 1950’s and early 1960’s! I have no idea what condition they are in, but it was a pretty impressive display.

During the night I heard what I thought was rain falling on the roof. At 5:30 I looked outside but couldn’t see anything. When I looked outside at 7 o’clock it wasn’t rain falling, but the wind blowing through the brittle dry leaves just outside my open window. That was a huge relief! Rain had been forecast for today, but not until the afternoon.

After a pretty decent breakfast we left and followed the waypoints I had plotted on my map last night to take us back to the Via Francigena. It was looking none to fair as we left. I hadn’t seen skys like this since coming out of the Aosta valley some three weeks ago.

And before you ask, yes, our day did begin with another climb!

And then it was back out onto the highway. I read that this highway gets very busy and dangerous, but this morning it was quite quiet. I attributed this to it being Saturday morning, and the morning rush and all the many trucks were all sleeping in! 

Bicycle riders were not sleeping, and we saw many along the highway today.

Eventually we departed the highway for the quiet of a secondary road.



It was so gray today after all the many hot, sunny stages that I had to look carefully to find the colours. But they were there!

Costanza had written me prior to my coming to the EU to let me know that there was a significant fire burning in the area that we were to walk together. We saw evidence of this fire as we passed just across the valley from its burn path through the trees. In this case it narrowly missed a small village. Sure sounds familiar from home these past years. A very difficult situation for everyone concerned.

Costanza was leading the walk at this point. I’d like to point out that we got lost on this stretch of road through no fault of our own. As I’ve found many times, some of the signage is pretty poor in certain locations. This being one of them. We didn’t go off track for too long before I checked my GPX tracts. 

I located some special colour on the side of the trails. I really love these little flowers and I’ve seen them on a number of my Fall walks.

We found this unusually plain looking church. What’s plain on the outside is often brilliant on the inside, however, we were unfortunately unable to see the inside of this locked church.

We knew there wasn’t too far to go when we crossed this river, about 6 km into the city centre.



Once again we found a church tower with peeling bells at noon. Costanza thought it was highly likely that the bells were ringing for a wedding ceremony. She’s use to hearing these sort of bells, but I’m not! 

This long river side trail took us towards the turnoff into the centre of town.

And then we arrived at the quite stunning city walls that are 4 km around. If the rain cooperates I’ll either rent a bike to ride the walls or I’ll take an umbrella and walk them. A little treat long on my wish list. I wanted to come here since hearing about Lucca from a friend almost 20 years ago. Of course now it’s raining!



This church is one of the principal items that people come to see in Lucca, but I’ll leave the site seeing for tomorrow, weather permitting.



Costanza had a quick coffee with me and after a Camino hug we parted ways knowing that our paths would cross again, either here or in Canada. She has a standing invite to come our way, and I’m pretty sure that will happen in the next 2 to 3 years.

I then celebrated getting rid of my slave driver 😂 by enjoying a lovely pizza just as the rain started to fall.

I was having such a good time all by myself that I had a pot of green tea to finish off a nice lunch.

All kidding aside, well most of it anyway, I’d like to thank Costanza for using some of her annual vacation to walk with me this past week. It’s been incredibly fun! Your sense of humour, obvious care for all the cats and dogs we saw (there were many) and your friendship made this an excellent week. Our many discussions, some serious and others light hearted, struck at the core of the camino experience and showed just why it can be so special. You are an excellent walker and I hope that you go on to walk and enjoy many camino experiences that are readily available to you. I just might be returning to walk the Via Francigena Sud one of these days in the not distant future, and perhaps you’ll consider joining me for a few stages? Maybe we can even talk Annemarie into walking a little of it with us! Lastly, thanks for encouraging me to work on my Italian. Your gentle corrections to my pronunciation greatly improved my experience, and I think during the next few weeks there will be a significant improvement.

Costanza, I just worked out that we walked 209 km in the last seven stages across some very tough terrain with more ups and downs than either of us could likely count. By my calculations that’s an average of 30 km/day. Not too shabby. I think we’ve both earned a nice couple of rest days. I know that I have!