Toscana Map

Sorry, don't know who drew this cartoon-like map of Tuscany, but I love it. It's so simple and yet it shows you all the sites to visit.

Villa Highlights

Okay, so several of you wrote me requesting photos of the Villa Buonvisi. I would recommend this place to anyone but you must be willing to rent a car to get to it because there are no buses. A taxi from Lucca, the nearest town, would run you about 30-Euros and expect the driver to get lost. It took us a few times to figure out the directions. Three of the couples had iPads with the Global Positioning System (GPS). It worked incredibly well. One couple used a European plan from Vodaphone, where you buy a plan with a certain amount of minutes and get WiFi and GPS. There is free WiFi at the villa.

To book one of the five villas on the Fattoria Mansi Bernardini property contact them at info@fattoriamansibernardini.it; website: www.fattoriamansibernardini.it

From their website: "We have five holiday houses (inside the farm) for rent, surrounded by the wonderful green of hills of Lucca. Each houses is provided with its own swimming pool, satellite TV, CD stereo, video recorder and a daily cleaning/laundry service, as well as garden and swimming pool maintenance. There is also a shared tennis court among ancient olive trees. Guests can also enjoy the holidays estate’s products (olive oil), and the opportunity to visit the Luxury holiday estate "Fattoria Mansi Bernardini". Farm guest's can provide to visit farm, Lucca walls, Lucca countryside and the green hills near the luxury farm." 

In the Villa Buonvisi there are seven bedrooms of various sizes. So we had 14 people to share the rental cost. Each of the bedrooms has its own individual Tuscan country style.

[Photos copyright by M. J. Milne 2011]

LUCCA's WALLED CITY

LUCCA, a small medieval town between Pisa and Florence, is similar to Rhodes, Greece because it's also a walled city. Renting a bike to cycle the wall is one of the best activities you can do there, especially at my age cause the road is flat---no hills!

I loved this quiet little town. There are no big bus tours cruising in and out, which means no throngs of people. The big tour companies bypass Lucca mainly because there are no major sights.

For our first evening at the villa we drove our free upgrade rental car, a silver Alpha Romero, into Lucca. There are lots of places to park outside the walls. Remember to pay the meter and get a ticket for the dash, and park only in the blue designated spots, never the yellow ones.

Walking inside the gate called Porta Elisa we eventually came to the Ristorante Canuleia, Via Canuleia, 14, Tel. 0583 467470, www.ristorantecanuleia.it/. We reserved for dinner and I had asked for gluten-free pasta which they cooked with care. Later I discovered that you can buy gluten-free products at the pharmacy, believe it or not! Bread, pasta, cookies, and crackers were mostly made with corn flour. Pharmacia shops have a green neon cross.

After a wonderful meal and good service we walked along the quiet streets, overhearing a concerto in a church, children playing in the main piazza, the birds at dusk, and music from other restaurants spilling out into the cobblestone streets. Then we visited the cathedral of Lucca known as the Duomo of San Martino. In the Piazza S. Michele is where the S. Michele in Foro (St. Michael in the Forum) church is located.


Searching for the amphitheatre we expected to find a Roman theatre similar to Verona's, but it turned out to be a piazza, the Piazza del Mercato in the shape of an amphitheatre. Built during the 1st and 2nd centuries, it could accommodate over 10,000 spectators.

The other sights in Lucca are smaller but no less delightful experiences to savour. One night we went to a church concerto which offered two operatic singers performing songs by Puccini  and Mozart.

[Photo copyright M. J. Milne 2011: #1 Gate to Lucca; #2 Lovers in Piazza del Mercato.]

 

Villa Buonvisi

La Fattoria Mansi Bernardini in the hills outside Lucca, Italy is a beautifully lush piece of property consisting of four separate villas for rent, each a pool and garden, an olive tree orchard and olive oil press, and a vineyard. The views are extraordinary, overlooking peaceful valleys and other Tuscan estates. Thirteen of us have come to stay for one glorious week. The first day it rained so hard it reminded me of that movie "Enchanted April" where the British ladies arrive from rainy London and are so depressed to find Tuscany just as wet and gloomy. But in the morning they open their shuttered windows to glorious sunny views.

Our first few days were spent exploring the area with rental cars. For example, driving to Torre del Lago the home of Puccini; then to Viareggio's seaside resort area which was completely empty of people with rows and rows of empty beach chairs ~ as if an alien spaceship had beamed everyone up. Very odd. And also to Pisa a wonderful town in itself even without the leaning tower; the hilltop village of Barga; and course my favorite little medieval walled Tuscan town of Lucca. This place make you forget about the past and enjoy each moment, Italian style.

[Photos copyright by M. J. Milne, 2011]

Rome to the Villa Buonvisi

Roma is an amazing city, full of urgency, vibrant life, the best gelato, some of the best sites in Italy, and a mecca for young adults and students. It can also be grueling. Walk don't drive in the city.

I arrived at the train station, taking the Leonardo Express from the airport, then a taxi cab whose driver ripped me off with the ol' exchange a 20 for a 5-Euro bill routine. I love you dear Rome, but enough with rip-off taxi cab drivers!

I visited all my favorite outdoor Rome sights and a few I'd never seen, but this trip was more laid back. A few years ago I had stayed six nights in Rome and enjoyed all the major sights including the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, all the famous piazzas and fountains, plus Trastevere across the river, and the Jewish Ghetto, etc. This trip I enjoyed the street scenes along the Via Condotti off the Spanish Steps (photo #1); the quiet and quaint Via Margutta off Piazza Popolo (photo #2); and the even quainter Via Guilia which parallels the Tiber River.

For your first visit I suggest an orientation bus tour, either in a Hop-On Hop-Off bus, or the red double-decker bus, or a professional bus tour to get yourself orientated to this huge city. Then again there's always the electric bus No. 116 that goes to all the major sights and costs next to nothing.

Three days and I was off from Rome to Pisa by train with my friends J & B. A comfortable three hours later we were lugging our luggage to the Hertz rental car shuttle bus. Then off toward Lucca, a 20 minute drive that ended up taking three hours because we missed one little sign. URRRRRG! The road signs are terrible! Drivers beware, alert your navigator in the passenger seat.

Finally pulling up to the Villa Buonvisi twelve kilometers north west of Lucca, we turned into a long driveway to see a magnificent villa---then realized we were at the wrong one! Oops! So doing a quick u-turn, we tried another driveway and yes, we recognized it from the photo on the website. Everyone else had already arrived to the Villa Buonvisi, Segnomigno in Monte. All thirteen of us popped our first wine corks around the pool overlooking an olive grove. To be continued...

A 20-EURO LESSON

From Rhodes to Rome in the blink of an eye--and with suitcase, too. Amazing! Not 45 minutes after arriving from the airport, hopping the Leonardo Express train to Rome's Termini station was I ripped off by a taxi driver. After being thrashed about in the backseat and hanging on for dear life, we arrived close enough to my hotel in the via dei Coronari. The driver said he couldn't drive into the street (a lie). And then it happened, the ol' slight of hand trick. He said it cost 25-Euro (2nd lie: the taxi metre was hidden). So I handed him a 20-Euro bill. He handed me my suitcase and while I fumbled with it and looking for another 5-Euros, he slipped the 20 into his back pocket and pulled out a 5-Euro bill, then said I still owed him another 20!!! I could have yelled for the police, but it's his word over mine and after getting up at 4:00 a.m. for my flight I was in no mood for 3-hours of Italian police paperwork. So this wise old bird just became wiser and was warned to watch more carefully when handing over money to anyone. In fact the first time I purchased something I counted out the euros so loudly everyone in the shop heard me! Hahaha!

Rome is more grueling then I remember it. It's more crowded, too. June 1st and the tourists have descended on the Roman ruins, ruining my view. The Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Piazza Navona, and all the other hot spots are bursting with lookie-lou's. However, it's the Italian version of July 4th and a long weekend, so the throngs are not all tourists but Romans out for a good time. They fill the streets for shopping, eating, hanging out, watching the celebrations and parades, listening to the President speak, watching the army march, and drinking their vino, experiencing a typical holiday spirit. Seeing the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi after his scandal was interesting. I also heard that the Italians plan on vetoing his nuclear power plant policy. The Italians will vote "No Nukes!" just like the Germans did. Thank goodness.

[Photo Copyright by M. J. Milne, 2011]