Market day in Lucca

We walked on the wall for our morning walk. We could see the vendors setup their stalls and getting ready. Most of them have awnings that folds up on top of their vans/trucks to give protection against the sun.

Getting ready

Not sure what the back building is, never saw any activities there.

Botanical gardens, open on demand this time of the year.

We see bikers of all ages when we walk the wall

The lawns are green

Bus station

Worked on my pictures from yesterday and posted the blog. Also looked at the places around Lucca that I could possibly go for a day trip.

Around 10:30 I left to go check out the market as last week, we only had a brief visit at it. Walked thru town to get there, a little over 1 km, and snapped a few pictures along the way of interesting things to me.

They need new flowers, probably too early yet

They rent bikes for 2 or 4 people in town

Permanent stall

Postman

Going to the market with mom

The market is almost 1 KM long and most vendors take about 10 meters for space. Some parts they are on both sides, so there must be around 150 vendors all together.

There was about 10 selling food. Food items for sale included Salt Cod, Cheeses, Breads, Fruits & Veg, and various meats that are cured (Prosciutto, Ham), and pasta.

A few were cooking food. Deep fried potatoes & veg, Roasted chicken/wings. I had 2 pieces fried bread from one of them.

Lots of them is clothes from jackets to underwear, some having used sweaters like Frenchies in piles on tables, and of course shoes, belts & purses. Everything you need to get dressed. Then there stuff for the house from pots & pans (cheap versions) to 1 euro things. Finally there the odd one that sells other stuff (flowers, used item..).

I bought a few things including some daffodils for Wendy. I also bought myself 2 pairs of wool socks and the floors in the apartment are tile and they always seems to be cold. Wendy says I am a wimp and that she has no problems.

wish we could get artichoke for 60 cents each at home, We would be eating a lot more of them

Swiss Chalet on wheels

Meat and Cheese at this food truck

and sausages

I was thinking I was getting deep fried pasta but it was bread. I guess dough is pasta as well

Porchetta.  I was at the bookstore yesterday and I found a recipe in an Italian cookbook in Italian that said 2 cups of salt but this online recipe only used 1/2 cup.  So anywhere between 1/2 and 2 cups is OK.

https://www.chowhound.com/recipes/porchetta-31215

Porchetta that we had on the weekend.

lots of people milling around

I was thinking of getting Wendy a fur coat but could not decide between blue, pink or natural colour.

Just like Frenchies

Lots of choices for purses

These were the flowers I was going to get Wendy but this lady got them before me

This guy had great prices on real Parmigiano Reggiano  cheese. 
Will be doing a factory tour in a few weekend with Marc & Mary-Sue

Even light fixtures for the home

For lunch we had a small salad and we used the leftover pasta sauce & made pasta. Afterwards we walked to the supermarket outside the wall. Picked up a few things including some more wine and got back in time for Wendy to be back at work. Much faster now that I know where things are.

After resting for a while, I went on the hunt for lemoncello. Found a couple of bottles but they were expensive. The property manager has a book in the apartment that with suggestion. There was a wine store that she recommended but it was only opening at 4, so I walked around for another 30 minutes wandering the streets. Came back to the wine store and looked around and saw the had stairs going down. I asked if I could go and he said yes. It was the wine cellar. There must have been 10 rooms with tons of wine of all prices. I will return when I have more time and money and pick 1 good bottle to enjoy at some point. Lucie and Dan tell me there are 99 plus 1 church in Lucca and my goal is to find them all. I know there are about 45 that are still active, just need to find the ones that are no longer in service. We have seen a few that look like they could have been churches at one time or another. I discovered one today that I had walked by already a few times. It is on the street off the street we live on. I will start a separate project for this and will only post at the end when I am done. We have seen quite a few churches already in town, just need to keep track of which ones I have seen and photograph and on what street they are on.

Has not been used for a while, needs a new seat as well

Church on the street next to us.

Another Piazza

Return to the apartment where Wendy made chili for supper. But she wanted to go for a walk before supper as she was not hungry yet. So we went on a mission to find that elusive lemoncello. Walked around for about 1 hour until I remembered where a small supermarket was inside the wall. Wendy can find this one as it is only 3 turns from our apartment and 2 of the turns she does at least once a day when we walk. We are finally the proud owners of a bottle of lemoncello.

Limoncella, finally

The chili was delicious and we had the cheapest bottle of wine we had in the cupboard. No sense wasting a good bottle when the chili is going to overpower it. We also had olive bread with the meal that we picked up earlier today. I am not a fan of olives, so if there are only bits of them, I am OK. Wendy the more the merrier. So I get the pieces with not too many olives, Wendy gets the rest.

Wendy has been busy tonight researching more for our holiday the last week we are here. She tells me she has Venice all done, but wants to work on Rome more. The credit card keeps coming out of her purse to purchase tickets in advance, ouch. This is so different from our other trips to Europe when we had cars and we just went exploring on week-ends, mostly the landscape of the small towns/villages we visited. Here we are visiting major cities with attractions that are must see.

I am happy there is no after supper walk tonight as I must have already walked over 6 hours today.

We now have a Lemoncello and play crib. In our second hand of crib, the doorbell rings. I pick up the intercom and it is all in Spanish. Wendy says not to bother as they are ringing all the doorbells. I go down anyway to see what they want. When I open the door, some young man asks if this is my garbage by pointing to it. I say no and he keep ringing other doorbells.

I am happy to report that my wool socks are keeping my feet warm.