Andrea, our host, served us breakfast at his restaurant just two doors down the street. Scott was busy with the coffee order while Pat arranged a table for us in the piazza. A man approached her and asked if she was Patricia Fenwick. Somewhat confused that a stranger in a small village in Italy would know her name she said -YES. The man was, of course, Paolo with whom she had arranged the accommodation. There were lots of smiles and handshakes all around. He was very pleased to meet us. After breakfast he went to an office across the street and presented us with a Lorenzana fridge magnet. It was quite funny because we often carefully hand pick a few of these kitchy souvenirs from only the most memorable stops. We have developed a small collection on the side of our fridge at home. The Lorenzana magnet will be a perfect addition!
After a very nice breakfast we went back to the room, packed up our panniers and headed back to the piazza to load up the bikes. Not paying too much attention to the traffic light, we rode down the main street on the way out of town. Pat looked into an open door where a school class was sitting on the floor surrounded by posters of their photography projects. Pat was beckoned in as a guest and Scott followed behind. The teacher explained the assignment that the kids had completed and told us that part of her lessons are in English, too. Now Pat has no fear of a grade four class and naturally began a conversation about where we are from. The kids think this is all great and have Pat sign the guest book. It really was wonderful to be so welcomed and very moving experience for both of us.
Pat telling the class about ourselves. The class projects surround the walls. The photographs are really quite good with the explanation of the subject presented below each picture.
Barry DevlinIndeed - a truly memorable experience. But I'm pretty sure Pat never wore a bike helmet while teaching her students in Canada! Reply to this comment 1 year ago
We retraced our route to last night`s restaurant and began the only real climb of the day. Our ride then took us through more populated centres and the traffic began to build. Just before reaching Cascine di Buti, about 25 kilometres into the ride, the truck traffic was becoming intolerable. We stopped when the road we were on, the SP6, became the designated truck route to Lucca and we evaluated other routings. We noticed that we were at the beginning of the SS439 which is a direct route to Lucca. We are leery of the Strada Statale designated roads as they are usually the bigger roads. However, in this case, trucks were not permitted and must stay on the designated truck route. As it turned out, the SS439 was an absolute delight to ride with almost no cars - a cyclist's dream of a curvy undulating road. The road went through numerous small communities and we think that there must have been a collective view that trucks were just not suitable on the road and they were banished to the longer SP6 route.
Straight flat road through the fields. Not much traffic right now.
We arrived in Lucca a bit early for our planned meeting time and rode our bikes into the amazing walled town. It was much larger than we would have thought as we rode the very bumpy surfaces or pushed our bikes along with the pedestrian traffic.
Aqueduct crossing SS439 just before arriving in Lucca. The 19th-century structure brought water to Lucca from the mountains south of the city through a stone channel supported by more than 400 arches, stretching for over 3 kilometres.
Our hotel was just outside the walls and we walked over again later to enjoy a nice pasta and salad dinner before calling it a night. Tomorrow is a day off so we will spend more time in Lucca then.
Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles) Total: 753 km (468 miles)
