Time for a Tosca(no) (Friday 9th August 2013)

This morning we said goodbye to the Cinque Terre after three great days in this Italian setting.

We caught the11:17 train from Monterosso to Lucca via Viareggio. Months ago I installed an app on my Android HTC called “Italian Train Time Table”. It is brilliant and has been worth every cent. Oh, it was free, BTW. With it I can punch in any departure station and any destination station and it will give me all the departure and arrival times for my journey for the nominated day, the route, the station at which it stops, the places I need to change trains, the train numbers and the cost. So far it has been 100% accurate on all of the above. So last night I was able to consult this app to make sure my train was going to arrive as expected which resulted in a stress-free morning. There us a lot to be said for knowing in advance that your train will be leaving at 11:17 and cost 13.50 euros and will arrive at 13:25. The paid app even tells you the platform number. If you're travelling by train in Italy or some other country and you can find a similar app then get it.

While on the subject of helpful travel tips, given today is a relatively quiet news day, I'll make a comment about Google Calendar. As you probably know I created our itinerary in Google Calendar. Into to it I put every piece of information I could about the trip. Planned daily activities, hotel details, train details, car detail, flight details, even Australian embassy details. All the documents I gathered while planning and booking the trip were uploaded the the cloud via Dropbox, including the Google Calendar built itinerary in the form of a PDF. Dropbox has a feature wherby document that are marked as Favourites are automatically download to your smartphone. A number of times over this journey I have need detailed information and been able to quickly retrieve if from my phone even when it has been offline from any network. Brilliant! At the London Eye I had forgotten to print my tickets but just showed the tickets on my phone to the girl and all was cool. Today we arrived at our B&B in Lucca to find the building deserted so I got the owner's mobile number from my offline Google Calendar itinerary, called the guy and he was around in five minutes. Gary L, when you travel overseas again I thoroughly recommend you do it this way. Damien and Gaye, do it for your trip to the US later this month.

Anyway, back to the travels. The train arrived in Lucca on what had changed from a coolish to a warmish day. I had plugged in the route from the station to the B&B into the Samsung tablet so I knew how far it was how to get there by foot if need be. There were taxis waiting at the station as expected. Before we loaded our bags I asked “How much to to Via C. Angeloni?”. Twelve euros was the answer. “But it's only 1.1kms”, I replied. To which he slammed the boot shut and said “ Via C. Angeloni is that way!“ I'd already been ripped off by his cousin in Rapallo who charged me 12 euros to go 500m. For what would have been a three minute drive I'll be bug$#@d if I it was going to happen again. No taxi ride is worth 240 euros/hr.

If you look closely at the photos you might be able to see the two laser burns in the back of my head. They came from Kerry who was less that pleased at the prospect of wheeling her heavy case through the Lucca streets for 1.1kms on a hot day, especially after walking the towns of the Cinque Terre on the previous two days. Anyway we made it to the B&B to find it unmanned. I made the call and the proprietor's father was around in a jiffy. The room is very comfortable, the B&B is in a quiet street just outside the old town, we're on the ground floor and we have a private bathroom. Excellent!

After a rest we walked into the old town. The old town is a walled, Renaissance period city. The wall is 4kms long. A number of arched gateways provide access to the streets, lanes and piazzas inside. We had a well-earned cool drink at Piazza Napoleon and then set off to look at some of the many churches. Interesting architecture. Look at the photos and make up your own mind.

Marble is extensively used in these parts as the Italian marble mining area is not far away at Massa and Cararra. We saw evidence of this from the train. Huge mountains had literally been carved away over the centuries. The railway sidings were full of massive marble blocks. Even the station at Viareggio was clad in marble where most stations are clad in concrete or tiles. Sadly, the churches and cathedral were in dire need of some TLC. They looked OK but could have looked magnificent. Nothing a couple of hundred million euros wouldn't fix.

We searched the town for a restaurant for dinner and were spoiled for choice, settling on one on the perimeter of a circular piazza which had reasonable prices – Cafe l'Emiliana - as it turned out.
I bought an Italian hat on the way. Every one wears them over here. I'll be ahead of the fashion curve when I get back to Australia!

Kerry ordered a selection of four cheeses to have with our pre-dinner drinks. It was delicious coupled with bread dipped in local olive oil, balsamic vinegar from Modena and a carafe of vino rosso. For the main meal Kerry has fettucine bolognese and I had rabbit stewed in a tomato, olive and herb sauce. Coffee followed as did the third tip to a waiter for the trip after his excellent service and advice. A most enjoyable meal in a typically Italian setting.

We strolled home on the warm evening poking our heads into shops here and there along the way.