Day 7: Florence/Lucca

 Friday, October 8, 2021

We had a more leisurely start to our day with a 9 AM reservation at the Accademia. The Accademia is most famous for housing Michelengelo's David statue. It's one of the first things you see when you enter the museum and wow, it did not disappoint. The David was much larger and grander than I had it expected it to be - every detail seems perfect. Fun sidenote: there are some pretty hilarious souvenirs for sale in Florence related to David: aprons of the David statue up to the neck, and postcards with a closeup of his genitals with glasses bridged over his penis and a smile drawn on the scrotum. Ok, back to the Accademia. I also really appreciated seeing some of the unfinished Michelangelo statues, named The Prisoners by scholars. It gives you a unique look at how he went about his sculpting. While most sculptors would diagram on the marble their intended etchings, Michelangelo did everything freehand which is quite incredible. The museum also contained a bunch of lesser-known Renaissance-era paintings, sculptures completed by Accademia students, and some more Gothic-style altarpieces. One of the other famous sculptures, Rape of the Sabine Women, was not on display. Another interesting section of the museum contained Renaissance-era musical instruments, including a hurdy gurdy and what experts believe to be the first upright piano.

Now that's the penis we came here to see

The gallery included other lesser-known and somewhat unfinished works like this one

After finishing at the Accademia, we headed to the main train station for a 1.5 hour trip over to Lucca, a Renaissance-era walled city. Unlike most Medieval walled cities, Lucca's city wall is completely intact. We grabbed a quick lunch (the Italian equivalent of a quesadilla from a chain restaurant) as we did a walking tour of the city. Summary of the tour: Lucca is Puccini's hometown so there are are nightly concerts and performances of his works. (We skipped that.) There are lots of churches and cathedrals. Two of the churches have really unusual columns with funky patterns including chevron and a checkered pattern.

Lucca also has a walking/biking path just inside the wall around the perimeter of the city. We rented a tandem bike and went a couple laps around the path. This was our first time using a tandem bike, and there were definitely some kinks to work out, mostly related to the quality of the bike, but after switching out the bike and making some adjustments we were able to find a rhythm.

We ended our Lucca excursion with gelato and a granita (kind of like a slushie with natural flavors) at one of Rick Steve's top recommended gelato spots in Italy. Our gelato flavors were dark chocolate orange, salted caramel, hazelnut, and Nutella. We enjoyed them all and they complemented each other well. Our granita was half raspberry, half almond. It was our first granita experience and was very delicious!

To end our time in Florence, we ate at a restaurant a little off the beaten path called Trattoria Anita. This was pasta night. We started with a traditional Tuscan appetizer: fried balls of bread (coccoli) served with prosciutto and a soft cheese called stracchino. We asked the server how to eat them so we didn't look too silly - you open the bread balls, spread the cheese inside, add prosciutto, and eat it like a sandwich. It was a good choice! Our pastas were also delicious. Mark chose spaghetti with bacon and a spicy tomato sauce; I chose pici al cinghiale, a very thick spaghetti (almost as thick as udon) with boar and tomato sauce. We left with very heavy and satisfied stomachs.

Coccoli with prosciutto and stracchino

A couple of observations:

• E-cigarettes are huge here. They seem to be especially popular with those in their 20s-30s. I've also seen more women than men using them. I have to say though, they aren't bothersome to others in the vicinity like marijuana and cigarettes are.
• Nutella is hugely popular here. That is nothing surprising, but what I did learn is that Italians have their own generic word for "chocolate hazelnut spread" instead of just calling everything Nutella. The word is "gianduia."

Our hotel even gave us a breakfast to-go for the following day. They went above and beyond to take care of us.