Tuesday, July 4: Mike and I drove about 3 1/2 hours from Bergamo to arrive at Lucca. We checked into our hotel, Albergó San Marino, and then went out in search of the pilgrim credenciale. The receptionist at our hotel said he’d done the Via Francigena before and sent us confidently across town to the Tourist Info office. They in turn told us to go to Cathedral San Marino from 9:30-6:00; it was right around the corner from our hotel but we didn’t make it because we stopped for an Aperol spritz at a shady cafe near where they were setting up the stage for Lucca’s famous music festival; tonight it would be Billy Idol and Generation Sex. On Thursday night Bob Dylan would be playing, but only one general admission ticket was remaining at a cost of 145€. It didn’t matter because on Thursday, Darina and I would begin our walk to Rome, and Mike would be on his way home.
We walked to Piazza dell’Anfiteatro and had an excellent dinner at Sotto Sotto Ristorante. The waiter and manager, Eugene, was super friendly and welcoming. I had ricotta and spinach ravioli with butter and sage and Mike had the most delicious meal: Pulled pork sandwich, burrata stracciatella, green sauce and baked potatoes. It was breezy and cool and the plaza was quite lively, such a pleasant experience all around. The only detraction from the experience was some YouTube influencer sitting a couple of tables away with her family; she was taking a video of herself gushing about how she’d now reached a million followers, or some such nonsense. It was so obnoxious!
Steps: 8,864; miles 3.76. Weather: Partly cloudy. Hi: 82°, Lo: 65°.
Wednesday, July 5: This morning at the hotel breakfast we met an Italian couple, Stefano and Stefani, along with Stefani’s best friend Firenzia, who sported a Generation X T-shirt (Gen X is generally defined as those born between 1965-1980). We found they had attended the Generation Sex and Billy Idol concert the night before. Firenzia had been to 44 Billy Idol concerts all over the world and Stefani had been to 42. Stefani had been to San Diego multiple times and wanted to live there; Firenzia was in love with Las Vegas and wanted to marry an Elvis impersonator there. They were hilarious and even sang us a few lines of “White Wedding.” They were groupies in the truest sense of the word.
After breakfast, we walked out of Lucca’s city walls through the Porto San Pietro to the Aqueduct of Nottolini. This 19th century epic structure was once used to carry water from the mountains into the city and contained 400 arches made of stone stretching for 3km. It was rather disheveled and unkempt, not like many that have been well-preserved in other places.
When we returned from our aqueduct walk, we headed for the Lucca Cathedral Museum to get our pilgrim passports. Finally I was able to find them after being sent on a wild goose chase yesterday.
We then wandered around awhile and found San Michele Paolino Allesandro Church, where I got my first pilgrim stamp. Unlike most churches in Italy, this one is very plain inside. Known as the church of S. Michele in Foro, it was built over the ruins of a previous church (from 795) and on the area of the ancient Forum of Roman Lucca. Its present form dates back to the 12th century.
The white Church has impressive proportions and blind arcades run around the entire church. The façade is higher than the roof, which makes this church completely different from all the other ones in Lucca.
We had lunch at Ciacco on San Napoleon Square. Mike had a panini with a zucchini omelette inside; I had Pappa Al Pomodoro: Tuscan tomato bread soup and Calabrian anchovies with burrata, a kind of room temperature soup that was more bread 🥖 than soup. It wasn’t my favorite. Then we wandered around waiting for Darina to arrive; she was keeping us informed of her progress coming from Pisa to Lucca.
Darina arrived in Lucca after her travel from Slovakia, by way of Budapest and Pisa, and met us at Piazza Napoleon for cool Aperol Spritz drinks. She came bearing a gift from Slovakia: Tatratea, a liqueur with 52% alcohol content! Mike would take it home so we could enjoy it in the safety of our own home 😂🤣.
I gave Darina the two pilgrim credenciales I’d picked up for her at the Cathedral Museum. I didn’t know if we needed one or two but we liked to get a lot of stamps, so I played it safe since the documents seemed quite elusive. After our drinks, we went to Lucca Cathedral so Darina could get her first passport stamp.
We all three rented bicycles and rode around Lucca’s 4km of city walls. It was a great green space, full of trees 🌳, breezes, people strolling and small groups pedaling four-person contraptions that seemed quite comedic. After we got off the city walls, Darina and I parked our bikes at several churches to get more stamps in our pilgrim credenciales.
Then it was time to finish a bottle of wine Mike and I had bought in Bergamo. Darina came to our hotel and we sat out on the patio and drank and talked about everything from Danish political TV shows to the screwed-up American political system.
We finished our evening at Ristorante Des Arts, the same restaurant where Mike and I ate in April of 2019 when we briefly visited Lucca. We had cacio e pepe again, but somehow it paled in comparison. It had been cold then and we had huddled inside; this evening it was warm so we sat outside and enjoyed a different atmosphere altogether. I was pleased to meet Darina again after five years apart.
Steps: 18,079; Miles 7.67. Weather Partly cloudy. Hi 83°, Lo 65°.
Thursday, July 6: Mike took off this morning at 6:30 am for the Pisa airport. Luckily he made it in time and caught his flight in Frankfurt despite a short layover. I was sad to have him go but was also trying to get in the state of mind for my pilgrimage. I rearranged my suitcase and my pack to send my suitcase through Bags Free to Rome.
I checked out of my hotel, left my suitcase and backpack at reception, and went to meet Darina at 10:30 near the Church of San Frediano with its beautiful façade, which displays a splendid Byzantine mosaic of the Ascension. Christ, in an almond shape, is surrounded by the apostles; the Madonna is portrayed in the center. We had passed it Wednesday on our bikeride but the mosaic was in the shadows. This morning, we were able to capture it in full sunlight.
We had drinks near Napoleon Square, next to the music festival stage where they were doing sound checks for Bob Dylan’s show that night. We had both done some research about how to take public transportation to Fucecchio, skipping the first 2 stages of the Via Francigena because we’d read those stages went through Lucca’s ugly suburbs. Also in the interest of time we had to choose to eliminate some stages. We thought we had our route figured out, and we headed to Lucca’s train station.
We took a train to Pisa, switched trains and arrived at San Miniato-Fucecchio. We realized too late that the Ostello Il Ponte dei Medici was actually in Ponte a Cappiano, 5 km north of Fucecchio. By this time it was late and hot and no way did we want to walk north to the Ostello and then have to backtrack south tomorrow morning. Some kindly locals tried to help and instructed us to take the train to Lucca! I said we just came from Lucca and that could not be the solution. Finally we found a taxi to take us to the Ostello for a steep 30 euros, way too much for a 12-minute drive.
Darina and I checked into our first hostel, Ostello il Ponte dei Medici, at around 3:00 after our challenging day navigating public transportation to get to Ponte a Cappiano. We weren’t too sweaty since we didn’t actually walk, so we postponed our showers and went to the only bar open in the small town, Bar Cappiano. We each had a beer and a panini with formaggio, Pomodoro & prosciutto while we observed a gaggle of local old men who probably gather there every day. It was quite fun to watch this group of obvious old friends. We wondered what on earth people do in a small town such as this, and we figured this was it: sitting around chatting at the local bar while the women cooked and cleaned at home.
After a long lazy while, we climbed uphill to the only church in town, Chiesa di San Bartolomeo. Darina buzzed the doorbell of a side building and a black priest stuck his head out of an upper window and waved like the Pope giving his benediction. We asked if he could open the church and stamp our pilgrim passport. He had a cell phone glued to the side of his head but he came down, stamped our passports and opened the church. By the time we came out, he was in the parking lot waiting and still chatting away on the phone. Down the hill someone was burning something and smoke was wafting up from below. We could see what we thought was San Miniato in the distance.
We returned to the hostel, which is built into the top of the famous medieval bridge of the town. This stop was identified as Sigeric’s Stage XXIV on the Via Francigena, also known as Aqua Nigra (“Black water”) – named for the brackish waters of the Usciana Canal which it spans. The bridge had strategic value in the medieval wars between Lucca and Florence, who each fortified or destroyed it at various times in its history. One of the Medicis rebuilt it, earning it the name “Medici Bridge.” For centuries the Hospitallers of Altopascio safeguarded the bridge for pilgrim traffic on the Via Francigena (according to Sandy Brown in Walking the Via Francigena Pilgrim Route – Part 3: Lucca to Rome).
We showered but didn’t bother washing our clothes because we hadn’t sweated that much. However, after showering, we immediately started sweating profusely. We escaped the stuffy hostel, which we had all to ourselves, and went back to the bar, sitting in a shady corner and writing in our journals.
The only Osteria in town opened at 8:00, so we went there for dinner. The woman, Nonna (grandmother), served us cool white wine in flower-painted wine glasses. We each had bruschetta, a plate of spaghetti arrabiata and some bread dipped in olive oil. It was a very pleasant evening as the woman was super nice and the ambiance was lovely and welcoming. We got another stamp in our passport. We now had seven stamps without having walked a step 😂🤣.
Steps: 12,405; Miles 5.26. Weather: Hi 89°; Low 64°. Mostly sunny.
The Via Francigena (pronounced Fran-chee’-gina) is an ancient road and pilgrimage route that runs from Canterbury, England, through France and Switzerland, to Rome and then to Apulia, Italy, where there were ports of embarkation for the Holy Land. In around 990, Archbishop Sigeric journeyed from Canterbury to Rome and back, but only documented his itinerary on the return journey, taken in 80 stages averaging about 20 km (12 mi) a day, for a total of some 1,700 km (1,100 mi).
This begins the story of our attempt to walk the stages from Lucca to Rome, which are in total about 410.5 km (or 255.07 miles). Since we had to cut out stages due to time constraints, our actual goal was to walk 340.8 km (or 211.77 miles).
Running tally: 0/211.77 miles.
~ wander.essence ~ 
You and Darina look so happy to be together again! Sounds a slightly chaotic day, but fun.
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I was so happy to meet up with Darina again! We’ve been in touch over these five years, but that’s no substitute for just hanging out with someone. It was definitely a chaotic day but we always had fun in the evenings. 🙂
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The architecture of San Michele Paolino Allesandro is quite unique.
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Isn’t it interesting? Such an elaborate and strange exterior with that high facade, and so simple and spare inside.
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Those buildings are simply beautiful and I love the aqueduct.
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Lots of beauty in Lucca for sure, Carol. That aqueduct is a far cry from the famous ones in France, which are kept up beautifully. This one was so run-down and I didn’t exactly feel it was a safe place.
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