Jamie’s Travels

Our trip to Tuscany started in Florence. Yet another city we’d planned to stay in but had been turned away by the cost. Ultimately I was glad not to stay there long. It’s a nice city to see for it’s beautiful old buildings and amazing physics defying dome. But it’s full of tourists for miles. There are a great deal of street artists too – somehow many of them seem to all have got the exact same sketches as well (I guess they all went to the same art school).

We stayed in Florence for about 2 hours before making our way across to Lucca. Blissfully this was a direct train. In Italy the majority of my journeys have required many changes compared to every other country I’ve been to. This is because all of the direct trains are high speed and require a booking fee. This journey though was fine but once we got off the train troubled news from the UK reached us.

The death of the Queen was an inevitability that I knew one day would come but I was surprisingly shocked by the news. I think in many ways due to recent losses in my own life. The death of someone you always expect to be there, who has always been there, is difficult to process. The news that day seemed to be foreshadowing the announcement but it was a surprise anyway. In many ways I’m upset not to be home for this, purely out of interest as to what the country is like. At least that’s small talk sorted for the next 6 months. Every single person I’ve met in the last few days has asked me about it. As it goes though, I’m sad to have lost the only Royal I actually liked.

We had little time to process the news before we had to start rushing to find buses. We eventually made it to our hostel. The bus driver didn’t even care we didn’t have a ticket (this seems to be the theme in Tuscany). We checked into our hostel and got some dinner and beer. The food was very good but the air was so hot and humid I could barely touch it. We also met a German guy called Nickolas who we befriended and then went on to chat to the locals for a few hours. The hostel has a bar that lots of locals drink at and they were all very welcoming and nice. They told us about the city and their lives. They also told us a lot about their football teams (not something me and Lawrence can relate to that much). The hostel owner even gave us free lemonchellos and montenegros (two lovely Italian desert drinks) as condolences for the death of the Queen. If nothing else, thanks to Liz for that one.

The next day we started by exploring the city of Lucca. It’s an entirely walled city and it’s very beautiful. A man later told us that it’s known as the city of a 100 churches. It is pretty clear why. It’s a really nice city. We grabbed a quick coffee and some food and then headed off to Pisa.

We saw the leaning tower and the surroundings buildings in Pisa. Instead of taking the classic ‘holding the building up’ photo though we decided to go around making it look like we were giving high fives instead.

We then walked though the city to the train station. Taking a minute to look at the Keith Haring mural. Due to train strikes (guess we aren’t the only ones) we were worried we would be stuck there but we were fine in the end.

We headed out to a city called Viareggio to find a beach. As it turns out every beach here in privately owned. We walked so far down the beach in search of the public one that we actually walked out of the city. Standing on a crowded, tiny sliver of beach surrounded on all sides by private beaches with no one on them made me pretty unhappy. I had a quick swim by myself (Lawrence didn’t feel great) and then we left and made our way back to Lucca.

In Lucca we took a minute to stare at some dogs before heading to a local restaurant. After much scouring of the internet I’d found somewhere that would offer me a vegan pizza. The restaurant was a really nice. They sat us in the garden and we’re really accommodating for us as non-Italian speakers. Turns out most of the staff knew little English – which in many ways is an endorsement of the place. The food was amazing. One of the best pizzas I’ve ever had. For desert we had a sgroppino, a mix of lemon sorbet and vodka. It’s really great. Turns out we took our time so much with our meal though that we’d missed the last bus back. Not wanting to waste money on a taxi we decided to walk an hour and a half. Not that awful of a walk in the end. Made the dinner feel rewarding as well. Zero regrets.

Back at the hostel we got a couple more beers in and chatted to the other guests. Most of whom were German. But all very nice. My favourite thing said to me was ‘of course they can’t speak German, they’re English – they only speak English’. This is of course, all too true. This didn’t stop us teaching them Irish snap though. A game that went down very well. The owner even brought out the last of the bottle of montenagro and gave it to us for free – on the condition we leave a good review of course. He was very nice and I will.

For our last day we headed to the winery. This was probably my favourite Tuscany activity. We wound up being late due to issues with the buses but it was no bother to the hosts. We arrived and immediately they brought us our wines one by one. In the middle they also brought us around the production line. Honestly I found it all really fascinating – I just wish I’d been less tipsy. For each wine we’d be given some time to try it and then a woman would come and tell us about it. She also told us a bit about herself, she was South African and studying wine and food in Italy. Sounded like a fun degree! I got to try a rosé, a white and three reds – all aged to different levels and fermented in slightly different ways. I’m now a wine expert as it goes – can’t wait to annoy mum at Christmas.

More issues with public transit meant we were stuck at the winery. In the end we managed to get a bus to a tiny village nearby which had a beautiful church. We stayed there for about 2 and a half hours. We got a coffee as well – which to be fair, was the best I’ve ever had – pity the lady at the till was so rude. It was interesting to see a small village in Italy anyway.

We made our way back to Lucca. There we briefly stopped in a wine shop a local recommended where I got some cheap wine. Wonder what cheap Tuscan wine tastes like. The bottle is about 6 years old so I have hope. We were going to try and vegan Italian place but unfortunately it was shut. Instead we headed back to the hostel for dinner.

We spent the last night in the hostel chatting to other guests. We got a big table going in the end. it was great fun. By the end of the night it turned into essentially me and Lawrence doing standup comedy for everyone though. This isn’t far from common at home either to be fair though. They seemed to enjoy our routine about different accents though. I also learned a fair bit about German politics as well – all very interesting. We wound up staying up quite late. Especially when me, a Dutch guy, a German guy I’d met before and Lawrence began debating if free will existed. At around 2am I decided I’d exercise my free will and go to bed.

In the morning we split a taxi to the city with 4 random people who we’ll never speak to again. All part of travelling I suppose. Now off to Venice to find some familiar faces again.