European Escapades: Lucca and Pisa

Our first full day on the Bella Tuscany tour took us to Lucca. It was here in my first trip to Lucca, that I took my one of my favorite picture of the "bikes"...take a look...

So going into the trip, Holly, Molly, and I decided we take "collections." (bikes, doors, door knockers, food, signs, etc.)  So, keep your eyes open for them!

We didn't have a goal in Lucca, but just hoped to walk around and soak up Italy. We tried to stay with the group up to the Church, but somehow we got separated by shopping! Oops...we did run into the Stahl sisters b/c I was SUPER jealous of Jamie's fabulous orange coat (I totally saw it in the window and didn't go in b/c I didn't have room in my suitcase for a coat!!! LOL)

Fabulous right!?!?

Here are just a few other pictures that I LOVE from this day...

 In the church, we discovered that St. Zita is the patron saint of Lucca. This was especially intriguiging because Molly's mom's name was Zita (my kids' great-grandmother).

Lucca was the hometown of the great composer Puccini (Madame Butterfly). This was in a square near his home. Yes, we totally posed with the statue and cutout!

Good stuff, right!
While in Italy, Amanda Knox was acquitted. I found a paper...which was a goal for the day!

Here are a few other pictures...of our first slice of pizza, etc.

It was a good first day.

We then went to Pisa and took the regular pictures that the twenty thousand other people were doing....holding up the tower.

And, this is one of my favorite statue posings that we did the entire trip.