Lucca – Strolling and Dinner

The first evening, Lisa took us inside the walls for an hour orientation (favorite churches, where to hear Puccini, best restaurants, and, of course, her favorite gelateria) after we checked into the Alberge La Luna. A group of us had dinner on the terrace of the Osteria via S. Giorgio and then went in search of gelato (it had been 24 hours, after all…..) Failing to find the recommended place, I went up to a group of Carabinieri all dressed in flak jackets “guarding” some high-level person at a conference and produced some of my lousy Italian and showed them a picture of the place we sought on my camera. For the next 20 min, all of the wonderful young men discussed, went up the chain of command, fooled with my camera (to zoom in to read the name), and whipped out their iPhones to search for it - - at one point one showed me where he thought it was on a Google earth view of city buildings. It was an hilarious (albeit unsuccessful) encounter. I’ll post the picture Margaret took of me with the police and our various technologies if she sends it to me.