We can't get enough of Lucca. Even Olney loves Lucca. This time we went to meet our lovely friends Micah and Anna who are living and working in Rome for a couple of years. It turns out Tuscany is in the middle between Saluzzo & Rome, how horrible huh?
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| Our Villa in Lucca. That's my new car out front! |
Micah and Anna wanted to have a gastronomically satisfying weekend and I think we did just that. Though after 6 bottles of wine in one weekend for the 4 of us, I was tired and in need of a break!!
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| The view from the villa! |
We picked up Micah & Anna at the train station in Pisa and went straight to our
favorite brewery, Bruton! You may recall from our last trip to Lucca that they have an excellent Florentine steak and we got 2! And of course that went well with 2 pitchers of their beer. Also, they have an excellent chocolate mousse.
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| Us and Anna in the Oval Piazza |
We weren't the luckiest in the weather department, but Saturday morning was quite lovely. We slept in and then went up the mountain to the
Agrituristico Celli where we bought wine and grappa and honey. Then we went back to our lovely villa and had a lunch of Tuscan salami, cheese, bread, olives and assorted yumminess Fabri and I brought from Piemonte to share with Anna & Micah. After lunch, before we all fell asleep again, we went down to Lucca.
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| Lucca from above |
Unfortunately not too long after we arrived, it started raining, so we had to skip some of the architecture in favor of ducking into bars. So after a couple of aperitivos and getting a little wet around the edges, we headed back to the villa to relax before dinner.
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| Us in the wine cellar of Cantine Bernardini |
For dinner we went to the #1 trip advisor pick, the
Cantine Bernardini. During the day it's just a small green door in a big blank wall, but in the evening, you go downstairs into several century old wine cellars. We thought it would be crowded, but the rain must have kept people home. That suited us just fine as we enjoyed some lovely gourmet specialties and sampled the Montecarlo wines. Montecarlo btw is the famous wine producing region of the Lucca hills. It's north of Chianti and the wines are different. I would be happy to list what we ate, but it's too difficult to translate all the deliciousness. But the dishes were very seasonable with leeks, mushrooms, chestnuts and truffles, lots of truffles. Nothing makes me happier than seasonably appropriate menus.
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| Sunday morning before leaving the villa |
Sunday we woke up late and had breakfast before bidding our villa farewell and heading to Viareggio (sound familiar?). We went to lunch at some random restaurant we found (it ended up being pretty good) and drank a bottle of my favorite white wine, Greco di Tufo. That was our 6th and final bottle of wine for the weekend (thank goodness!). After lunch we walked around town and let the puppy run around in the sand. Then, after one last gelato, we said goodbye to Micah & Anna at the train station of Viareggio and Fabri, Olney and I got in the car and drove back home. The drive was pretty nice (I did most of the driving) until we reached Piemonte which looked like Armeggadon. The clouds were so thick and dark and there were strong winds. Luckily we made it home before it rained and relaxed a bit before ANOTHER eating engagement: the birthday dinner of Gaetano & Giovanna! More wine and more delicious food (this time Piemontese) and we were off to bed before another week started with out us!
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| On the beach in Viareggio |
3 comments:
Ahhh I love Lucca. By far my favorite city i've been to in Italy (sorry Saluzzo). Looks like you all had a great time!
truffles? did you eat truffles? loved the armageddon comment.. ya.. pretty much !
We had such an awesome time. So fun to read your blog post. Thanks for all the research you did to find the villa a nd for bringing the great piemonte cheese and salumi. We are in search of the cheese in the little bottle now! Talk soon!
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