Lucca and Pisa

I thought I should also recap on the weekend. Daniela and I took the train up to Lucca (about two and a half hours north) and spent several hours there. It was beautiful! Lucca is surrounded by huge walls that have grass, trees, and even parks on top of them! We walked around the walls for a while then explored the city. There were tons of churches and they were all amazing. We found a cool new church everywhere we went. For lunch we got focaccia bread and pizza, it was the best I've had yet! Then we went in search of a gelateria. We eventually found one that looked good so we each got some. This was definitely the best gelato I have had yet. It was divine. So good. I got two flavors: mint chocolate and "Bounty" (A candybar. Pretty much the same thing as an Almond Joy without the almond. But this gelato also had caramel in it which made it even better!). I very thoroughly enjoyed that gelato!

We were really tired after walking around the city for a long time and we rested in one of the parks on top of the wall. We had seen everything we'd planned on seeing in Lucca but we still had about three hours before we'd planned on leaving. Then Daniela had an ingenius idea. We were scheduled to change trains in Pisa and we both really wanted to see the leaning tower. So we took the train to Pisa, got off, and walked till we found the tower. The duomo right next to the tower is amazing! My favorite one so far! After a sufficient amount of picture-taking, we headed back to the train station. We had to walk for about 30 minutes to get there, but we eventually found it. We caught a train back to Siena, did a little grocery shopping, then rode our bikes home. It was a very tiring, but fun and exciting day!

Sunday was good as well. I am slowly mastering the art of riding a bike while wearing a skirt. That was a trick. Luckily, returned missionary Daniela knows a couple tricks. If you take a clothes pin and pin your skirt at the bottom, you don't have problems. I wish I'd known that before Sunday. Oh well, I'll do it next time. Church was great. We spent a while in Piazza del Campo. We were just about to leave when all of a sudden we heard drums. We looked around and one of the contradas was parading through the square. They had flags and drums and guys all dressed up in medieval attire. It was really cool. We looked all over the city for an internet point that was open and finally found one and were able to call our moms! That was great! It was a good day and this week is going to be great, too!