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Lovely Lucca

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After Montalcino, I drove to Lucca. It was a decent drive of 2.5 hours and 185km, and mostly scenic. I spent 5 nights in Lucca from November 27 through December 1, 2019. As I arrived, city crews were beginning to hang the Christmas lights, which were a bit different: words to carols. Christmas lights in Lucca Lucca is a walled city, and parking in the city center is by permit only, so I parked inside the walls (barely), but on the periphery and about a 20 minute walk from the Airbnb I stayed at. This Airbnb was one of the few where a person actually met me to show me the apartment. It was quite nice with a living room/kitchen, bedroom, nice bath with washer/dryer combo, and a family room! Airbnb in Lucca It was quiet, and only a couple blocks from the main shopping street, next to a nice piazza with a church (of course) and a couple of caffès, one was modern and the other classic. I had my usual "una brioche e un espresso" (o force due--or maybe two) at the C
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The Hill Town of Montalcino: home to Brunello

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The drive from Siena to Montalcino is scenic and winds through the Tuscan hills. Between Siena and Montalcino After 45-60 minutes of driving, I arrived.  Again the Airbnb owners provided detailed instructions to find the apartment, but these were a bit hard to follow.  Inside Montalcino itself, I missed a turn and found myself confronted with a ZTL (zona traffico limitata)--in other words, do not enter unless you want a fine.  Since there were also traffic police right there, I took a right (which was on the owner's list of streets to take to the apartment).  Next I heard was a blast on a whistle and saw the police waving me back.  It seems I turned right on a one-way street going the wrong way!  Trying to explain that I didn't know how to get to the Airbnb, they looked at the instructions and said I had to go back to the beginning (entrance to Montalcino) by turning left where I'd turned right.  Oh, my! At least it wasn't "Go directly to jail. Do not pass G
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Siena

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Now that I'm back in the US and visited my family over the Holidays, I will try to finish the blog posts about my Italian adventures.  Sorry for the hiatus.  Fortunately, I kept a journal (handwritten) while I was there, so I can refer back to my observations.  And of course, there is the archive of photographs to remind me of specifics. I left Florence on November 18, 2019, and headed to Siena.  I had reserved a car with Hertz for the remainder of the trip (to be returned in Milan).  Since this section of the trip wanders through wine country, I wanted to be able to drive around to see the territory and visit the vineyards and wineries. Fortunately, the Hertz location in Florence was only a block from my Airbnb, so it was an easy task to pick it up.  A nice Fiat 500L with just enough space in the back to hold my luggage. Readers may remember that I bemoaned the multitude of staircases in the Uffizi and the Pitti.  During those ascents, I made liberal use of the handrails to he
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