In and Around Lucca – and excursion to Sestri Levante

We are attending school at the popular Lucca Italian School. Four hours a day of intensive Italian. Mornings full of fun games, loads of learning, and, at times, daunting grammar!

These ancient waterways running though this countryside are used still today for stone grinding grains and crushing olives for olive oil.

This lovely resident, seeing our little group passing by her window, stuck her head and began explaining the process of grinding grains and making olive oil.

As mentioned before, the city center of Lucca is completely contained by a high, wide, fortress wall. Narrow foot passages and larger port ways for cars, allow for entrance and exiting the city center. Each tunnel is unique, some a simple straight exit path through the wall, others loop around, cavernous like through the wall, eventually leading out the other side. We discovered a few new passageways we had not been in before. And one has huge art sculpture.

The tiny storefront entryways of many city shops are deceiving. Once inside there are mazes of corridors leading to additional rooms of the shop. This game store also sells books, mock weaponry, art and art supplies.

Sestri Levante

We took a day trip to visit family in Sestri Levante about an hour and a half drive from Lucca. After fours years, it was an emotional and bittersweet filled day. In addition to the family visits, we had a important mission to accomplish while in Sestri, keep reading.

We finally heard the full story of Domenico’s experience in the hospital in early 2020. He went into the hospital in February of 2020 for a knee replacement. All hell broke loose in Italy, he contracted Covid and remained in the hospital for more than three months. The doctors told his wife, Anna, he would not make it, everyone else in the ward around him did not. Yet, he miraculously survived, and was finally, able to come home. Sadly, his muscular structure has not recovered from the effects of long haul Covid and long-term hospitalization. He no longer can walk and lives with pain.

We took a walk around the hilltop to clear our minds and get some fresh air.

The church where Gary’s grandfather was baptized in 1899 and the plaque in commemoration of those who died in WW1, listing Gary’s grandfather’s oldest brother, Siro. Siro’s death prompted the sending of Gary’s grandfather, at age 15, to America for safety. He never returned home to see family or his country.

And now we come full circle, spending time with the Italian family, able to speak with them in Italian, bridging the gaps in the generations. We are truly blessed. Our mission this time back to the home of Gary’s family was to spread the ashes of his mom in the birthplace of her father and the roots of her origin.