The last weekend in April, Sara, Simone, Matteo & I drove north into Tuscany. Since there seems to be a 3-day weekend once a month here (for one random holiday or another), we joined the rest of Italy on the autostrade and set our barings for a small city in Tuscany called Castel Nuova di Garfagna. It's a pretty big name for such a small place!
We stayed in a friends country house that has been in their family for centuries. It was written above the door that it was built in 1788.... amazing huh?
On Saturday we drove for 45 minutes to an ancient, midievil city called Lucca. This city has been part of the Roman empire since 180 B.C. and still maintains the orginal Roman street plan and the large stone walls that encircle it.
This is the basilica of San Michele in Foro. It was built over the original Roman forum of the city.
We stopped and had lunch in this famous circular piazza, where there was also a Saturday flower market. There were the most beautiful mediterranian plants and flowers there!
Then we climbed these super scary steps to the top of the main tower in Lucca. It was definately worth it for the view once we reached the top. One of the things that make this tower unique, is that there are trees growing on the top.
This is an arial view of the circular Piazza Anfiteatro, where we ate lunch earlier that day.
On our drive back to Rome, we stopped for lunch in Forte de Marmo (translates: Marble Fort). It's named this because there was an important fortress that is made from the marble in the nearby mountains. You know all those beautiful roman statues carved from marble?? Well, this is where they have been getting the marble for 1,000's of years. In the picture below it looks like there is snow on the mountains, but it is really white marble.
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