Lucca, Pisa & Nice

Day: Monday, 17 September 2007
Wellbeing: Running nose
Weather: Warm & muggy
Highlight: Ria - the local guide we had for Lucca.

Lucca is such a special place, Pisa by no means compared. And the two cities are rivals of each other. And because Lucca was so special, I just had to buy something in memory of it. I happened to come across a store that opened and I bought Mum a pair of leather thongs. Would have bought it for myself, but it was the last pair and it was a size 36, and i'm a 38.

They just had a light festival where the whole town was lit up by candles, but the day we visited they were taking the candles down. Its actually the location of the "real" first colosseum. The town centre is in the circular shape and there are 52 entry ways, exactly like the Colosseum in Rome. It was fortified by Napolean's sister (i think it was his sister, but i could be wrong, because my memory is crap) for a war that never happened, and later she planted heaps of trees around the wall and made it into a park like surround.

Absolutely captivating and i will remember it always. Might go back for a concert in the colosseum shaped town centre. We were informed that Elton John recently had a concert there and so did Van Morrison...if Ria had told me that Michael Buble would be performing there, i would fly from anywhere in the world to attend.

When we got to Pisa I took a token photo of myself leaning on the Tower . And that was basically it for the day in Pisa. I got a slice of pizza in Pisa, but it was pretty crap, so I was pretty disappointed.

As we travelled to Nice, in Genoa Marese advised that our hotel in Nice was completely booked so we have been moved to a hotel in Cannes. I didn't mind where we were going to stay, so long as we got there. Before we would go to Cannes we were going to stop in Monte Carlo (Monaco, France) for the Casino.

I do believe the well dressed and style conscious are in Monte Carlo, if you compare Innsbruck or Lucerne or Vienna (as Marese thinks). Everyone I saw in Monte Carlo were effortlessly beautiful and glamourous. GDI!

Went into the original Casino, but only to use Mrs Murphy. Beautiful interiors, but absolutely no photos allowed. The Mrs Murphy seats were washed once you flushed - talk about poshy!

Really busy tomorrow...