Lucca - Groceries and visitors from NB

Neither Wendy or I could believe we slept in until almost 9 this morning. I guess we were in need of a good night sleep.

Not much in the fridge as we only did a small grocery to get us started. We had leftover bread and made toast with it this morning. The toasters are somewhat different than home here. The toaster slots have baskets in them that you take out. You squeeze them to put your bread in and take out your toast. This is probably because of the small loafs of bread that they have here instead of the regular store breads we buy at home. Anyway you do not have to unplug your toasted in order to stick a knife in the toast to get it out of the toaster.

There was leftover coffee and tea in the cupboard. Unfortunately when we asked for help at the grocery, the man did not speak any English and just pointed to the milk. We ended up getting skin milk which is not my favourite but it is what it is. We used google and found out it was skimed milk. Will buy something today that has a bit of fat in it.

We finish the grocery list that we started last night at breakfast time. So my number one task today is to do a major grocery run. We had gone yesterday but the store closes at 1PM on Sunday. It is a 1KM walk to the store. So I left the apartment around 10:30. Wendy says it was closer to 10. At the grocery store I signed up for the membership card to make sure I get all the discounts. Not sure if it was needed or not, but it does not hurt to get one. You also earn points which I am sure I will never have enough in 5 weeks to get anything for free. The supermarket is like a small Sobeys. Much bigger than the ones inside the wall here in town.

You need to put 1 Euro in order to get your shopping cart and you get your money back when you are done. It was the same in Spain and Portugal. This makes sure that the carts are return back to where they belong but you need to make sure you have a 1 Euro coin with you. The other interesting thing that they have here is self scanning. So you can scan and bag your groceries as you go along. Not sure how you checkout when you are done as I did not do this option today. These were at the entrance when you enter the store. The carts have holders where you place the scanner when you are shopping. I noticed someone was using it to do price check with it. Would have been nice to have as sometimes it is not easy to figure out the price is. I had to ask someone a couple of times to make sure.

The fruit and vegetables are when you first enter. I must have gone back and forth 5 times in the section to get everything I needed. They have a section where you bag what you want, go to the scale and weight it which prints out the price sticker that you put on your bag. An organic section, a section for bagged food (2 pounds bags of carrots) and a section where you may have 6 carrots in a container. Trying to figure out what the prices are for each was a challenge. Sometimes it is per Kilo, sometimes per pieces.

Next stop were the sale rack that must be either Store clearing, store special or something as there were good deals there. Best of all it included a few wines at 50% off. Not like home where you get $2 off on a bottle. The most expensive wine they had at 50% off was 5.5 Euro ($8) before the sale and the cheapest one was 1.7 Euro after the discount. They have have tetra packs of wine for around 1 Euro per litre. We will save money here.

After that it was a lot like home. Did all the aisles once to get mostly everything I needed. Then I had to redo a few aisles for items on my list that I had missed and also hunt for a few items I could not find after the second run. The hardest to find was oatmeal for Wendy's breakfast. I finally found Barley flakes which was the closest they had. I hope she likes it. They had corn flakes for me, so I am all set.

The bills came to 82 Euros which is not bad considering I got 6 bottles of wine and I filled 4 Sobeys sizes bags which we brought along with us.

There no way I was going to walk home with all this, so I asked at customer service to call me a cab which only took about 5 minutes to get there. The driver spoke some English so we had somewhat of a conversation on the way back. Come to find out that the building at the end of our street is the local jail for the area. The driver also recommended a restaurant close to our place. The apartment manager also recommended this place. So we will go there at some point during our stay. It is 2 KM driving back as you need to drive thru a gate in the wall to enter town. The cost of the taxi was 13 Euro, so I won't be doing that too often. Probably will be using the groceries store inside the walls for small stuff from now on.

I think Wendy was starting to get worried about me as I was gone for almost 3 hours altogether. I guess I was gone longer than I thought.

For lunch Wendy made a nice salad with yummy mozzarella cheese topped with a can of tuna.

Afterwards we went exploring the town during her lunch break. Found a pizzeria with lots of locals at it. We will do lunch there one day, just need to find the place again as there are so many small street and none of them seems to to square to each other. Saw a few store that I will come and visit again. Many wine store that I am sure I will enjoy visiting and checking the wines and also look for some grappa and lemomcello.

Lunch Time Walk

Notice the trees on top of this tower

Like this one Robin?

Market, not sure if this is still in use

Around 4:30, we got an email from our next door neighbour in NB, Lucie. She had told us that she was also going to be in Tuscany this week with her boyfriend Dan. We made plans to meet them at Piazza Anfiteatro. This square used to be a Roman Amphitheatre but nothing remains of it except for the shape of it. So the Piazza, square, is actually an oval. When we walked there we realized we had passed this a few times already but never gone in, it is kind of tucked away and we haven't hit the main tourist attractions on maps in Lucca yet, we've just wandered on our own.

Last night we discovered a spot with a few wine bars at the end of a street where the locals seem to go to grab a glass of wine and hang out on the street or in the bar. We didn't stop last night, but thought it would be a good place to go for a drink with them. A nice little spot, we were definitely the only English speakers, the bar we chose had all kinds of pedal bikes inside, all in different points of being put together, pretty cool.

After a bottle of wine some food was in order, so off we go to a place that Andres taxi driver from this morning, and our rental agent had both recommended. It is less than 5 minutes walk from our place which is nice. We had a delicious supper, We did the Italian thing. First course, Second Course and dessert. We had 3 pasta and 1 gnocchi for the first course. This was our first time having gnocchi. I had heard that if they are done properly they are like little pillows. Well these were like Down filled pillows. Lucie and Dan had Ravioli & Spaghetti Bologna. I had Fine herb ravioli in a cream sauce. Wendy had the gnocchi with Gorgonzola cheese sauce. Luckily for me, it also had walnuts in it, so Wendy and I switched appetizers. For main course I had Cod with Leeks, Wendy Pollo Frito and Lucie & Dan shared a scallop of veal with a side of deep fried onion and zucchini with blossoms. The main course were all good except for Wendy's fried chicken. Must have been on the menu for tourist but not sure. We ordered 2 tiramisu for the 4 of us for dessert. We ordered a round of Grappa to finish the meal as Lucie had never had it before. I did not mind it but the rest of the group not as much as I was offered to finish theirs if I wanted. From Wiki (Grappa is an alcoholic beverage, a fragrant, grape-based pomace brandy of Italian origin that contains 35 to 60 percent alcohol by volume). Not sure what % this one was but you could feel the burn. A round of Lemoncello was ordered to wash down the grappa. The group very much enjoyed this. The bill came to 65 Euro per couple and that included a fine bottle of red regional wine. Very happy with that price for the meal we had. We had planned on going out tomorrow night but I guess this is our Valentine dinner and I will be doing the cooking tomorrow night instead of going out.

Amphitheatre

Dinner with our next door neighbour from NB, Lucie and Dan

Famous Italians we don't know

Tonights specials, we did not allow Dan or Andre to order the horse tartar

Supper is now done and it is a beautiful so we decide to walk Lucie and Dan back to their car. Problem is they are not sure where they parked. OK, they remember there is a roundabout right at the entrance where they came in, we've narrowed it down now, there are 3 entrances with roundabouts that make sense when we look at the map. Off we go to the closest one, no this is not it. Now they pull out their phone and we look at their first pictures from today. Andre and I recognize the Church but we're not exactly sure where it is. There are big tourist maps at each entrance so we ask a guy that is parking his scooter to show us where the church is on the map. From here we make a best guess and head off towards the Church thinking they will remember as we walk where they came in from. Luck has it, we are on the right track this time as they recognize stores and we find their car. Well we think they found their car, we didn't go outside the wall with them but they said they could see it from where we were standing. Haven't heard back from them so we're assuming they found their way home and off to Florence tomorrow. Lots of laughs, we told them our trick of taking a picture of where we park the car so we remember, I think they will be doing this from now on and thinking of us.

Dan may be back to get these

On our walk to find the parked car

Moonlight alley, this is our street, our apartment entrance is 2 doors down on the right