Today we went to Lucca, a 45min train ride to opera composer Giacomo Puccini’s hometown, and a former French “statelet” that Napoleon Bonaparte gifted to his sister Elisa Bonaparte.

Well, we missed our intended train at 9:44am, and ran into some friends who had the same plan – so their 3 kids (2 of whom are in the same class as Guille) and our 2 had a blast running around downtown Pistoia before boarding the train. These friends are extra-special because they live near us just south of Portland!

Lucca’s historic center is surrounded by a 4km tree-lined wall with a bike path and parks up top. While our friends biked along the wall, we walked inside the city. After stopping at a chocolate shop where Guille and Vivi tried delicious dark-chocolate covered orange peels, we made a beeline for Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, an elliptical public “square” built on the ruins of a 2nd century Roman amphitheater. A Sunday flower market filled the space, and we enjoyed lunch while watching people walk by – Guille in particular enjoyed a huge margherita pizza.

After carb-ing up on pizza and pasta, we headed to Torre Guinigi, renown in a town of towers for the trees on top. We were admittedly a bit apprehensive about taking a sometimes-whiny 4-year old and an almost-2 year old up 200+ steps, but we got Guille excited about climbing a big tower and we went for it. It probably helped that we first told Guille he’d have to rock-climb the outside wall. The kids did AMAZING! Both climbed up the stairs on their own, and we absolutely enjoyed the cool breeze and shade under the oak trees at the top.

Back on ground-level, we grabbed some gelato near Piazza Napoleone, met up with our friends again, and made the 3:30 train back to Pistoia. It was a lovely day-trip! After dinner, Dierks (a childhood friend of Guillermo) and his fiancée Brooklyn landed in Pistoia from Alabama, and Guille made name-tags for him and Vivi so they’d know their names – what a host!