Comedia del Arte in Lucca

Firenzi/Florence

As if to say, "Dare to look at us!"

You will be surprised that I won’t be saying much about the tourist mecca of northern Italy. Our foursome knew that we would only be there a few hours for a look-see. #3 and his fiancée had already visited Florence, but JJ & I had never been. It was for our benefit that we planned to go there for a half day. 

Firenzi, a sine qua non city, cannot be glossed over. Hence, I’ll not be talking about visiting the Uffizi museum or gawking at Michael Angelo’s “David.” I will tell you, however, that Florence in late May was already stormed with tourists. (Did I ever mention that I’m slightly agoraphobic?) To visit the cathedral there was a line two city blocks long. To visit the museum it was best to have reserved tickets in advance or wait in another line two city blocks long which moved a lot slower. (You should know by now, I have absolutely no tolerance for waiting in lines or anywhere else.) Our overview was comprised  of walking here and there among throngs of tourists while JJ happily licked on his gelati. 

Would I lie? Look at all these tourists & its only late May!

Fabulous dry-goods open market

Lucca

We decided to forego the lines and the crowds and head on toward Lucca where our rooms had been reserved by #3’s fiancée, Calinda. So far, she’d done a super job of getting wonderful accommodations. After a somewhat tortuous drive through the Tuscan hills, we were relieved to be approaching the modern exterior city by late afternoon. We thought we’d just breeze into the interior, walled, medieval city, take possession of our rooms, and head back out to sightsee. 

We kept circling an imposing, dark red brick wall several times, about 3 or 4 kilometers in circumference, before deciding to enter one of the narrow arches. We chose Via Elisa, so named for Napoleon’s sister who reigned over Lucca from circa 1805 to 1820.  In #3 drove without a care. In no less than 50 meters we suddenly found ourselves on a shade-darkened street, lined with time weathered stone buildings of 3 or 4 stories, and people walking all over it in all directions. It was large enough for two vehicles, but just barely, as one would have to pull right next to the buildings for the other one to pass. #3 down-shifted to first gear & with a surgeon’s precision began to pulse the clutch. Mothers with prams & walking children, senior citizens and youths, lovers & dog walkers, ringing bikers, the occasional motorcycle, and yes, the rare oncoming vehicle. It was a nightmare. We were looking for our rooms, but most of all we were trying to find an escape route. It was like slo-mo, a baroque saraband, as the pedestrians moved without the least bit of care or haste to one side of the street or the other for us to pass. They went right on with their conversations or concerns, never even turning to acknowledge us as they strolled. I thought surely someone was going to shake their fist and yell at us. But no, no one was the least perturbed. 

But #3 was getting pretty perturbed and barked an OR-type order for Calinda to telephone the hotel for directions. Twice already JJ had left the car to speak with a local for directions, which offered a momentary letup from this stormy episode. I never could figure out what language JJ used as he didn't speak Italian, but he seemed to return with all kinds of very precise instructions. Once again these people had all the patience in the world and tried their best to be helpful. Since we stopped twice and the directions offered concurred, we were definitely on the right track, but the problem was that our car could not turn down even narrower streets where only pedestrians & bikers could navigate. It was another kind of feeling stuck, yet all the same #3 kept pulsing in first gear at less than 5 k.p.m. So, we were going somewhere.

Calinda put the speaker phone so that #3 could drive & we could all listen. A pleasant,  real live, adult male voice answered. Yes, we were “expected”, he said, with only the slightest bit of accent. “You need to go to the Parking at the Piazza  Bernadini.” He repeated this several times. #3 repeated it back to him each time, “Si, si, Berr-narr-deen-ni.”  “You’re not far from it now. Just keep going.” Then the man added every so kindly, “But, you know. You really weren’t supposed to bring your car into the walled city!” (Duh! as if we didn’t realize that by now.) He then proceeded to provide directions for finding the rooms. Now at least we thought we were making our way out of the morass. The only thing we really managed to do was to exit the city. Piazza Bernadini was indeed to our left on our way out, but the parking was full to illegal.  #3 let us out with our bags just before he exited and found a proper parking “outside.” Then, just like everyone else, we walked several kilometers rolling our bags on the street, as we searched for our rooms. 

(Needless to say Garmina was completely off her radar. These gadgets tend to give the same wrong directions and then keep repeating, “Recalculating.”  #3 soon pulled the plug on her. With JJ’s fearless reconnaissance, Calinda’s phone call, #3’s stellar driving punctuated by colorful curse words, and my two cents of wisdom here & there, we finally figured it out on our own.) 

Finding the room proved to be another nightmare. It was getting really dark. We had found our street, but search as we might, we did not see a “hotel” sign. But, we had noticed a very small sign which said “Zimmer”  (German for “room”) & a small arrow on an archway that opened into a courtyard surrounded by more of the same kind of buildings as lined the street. Here was greenery & openness, and there was an outside pavilion ristorante. It was all lovely in the twilight. Only, we couldn’t find address #2, but we were definitely very “hot,” right at it. We asked la padrona of the ristorante who explained in Italian & pointed pleasantly back toward the street. What in the world had we missed? Not finding it we went back and asked second time. She walked with us and pointed to a tiny #2. Even if you saw it you might not have seen the door just beneath! In the dark it was practically camouflaged. We stepped back to see if there was something distinguishing about this “hotel.” Not a thing. No sign, niente, nada, rien! Just some regularly placed, smallish windows at each floor.  We were skeptical.* 

Calinda pushed the door open easily.  Not hesitating we all tentatively climbed a very steep stairwell to the 3rd floor. Why the third? In very dim light we could see that there was nothing on the ground floor, the second was obviously where we were going to have breakfast, as tables were already set. At the third floor there was a note on a small hotel desk counter instructing us to take our keys which were hanging on a wall board. Since we’d been told that we were “expected,” we took keys for two suites to the right. The note said we would be served breakfast the next morning. As far as we knew, we were the only guests in a very small establishment with obviously just a few zimmers. Our rooms were perfectly prepared and beautifully decorated like a fairy tale castle.** 

On our way down to eat at the ristorante we met another wayward tourist standing in the archway. This rara avis, a youngish Australian man, asked us if this was #2 & if it was a hotel.  We told him it was. Like us, he was as tired and frustrated as we had been only 20 minutes ago. He was outraged & couldn’t stop raging. We told him to just go right in & take his room like we had, since he said that he, too, was “expected.” He didn’t have the telephone number of the hotel manager so we were pleased to give it to him. He seemed to be a very sophisticated traveler because he spoke Italian like a native when he was talking on the phone to the manager. Later we learned that he was a dual citizen, Italy/Australia, and that he mostly lived in Italy. Nevertheless, he was furious, in either English and Italian.

Next morning Calinda went down to check if anyone was on hand to serve breakfast. She was informed that if we wanted breakfast we’d better get down there in the next half hour before the breakfast room closed. (This wasn't in our "instruction" note.) A young Albanian man, an employee-but-not-the-manager served breakfast and received payment. He told us all about his plans to immigrate to the United States, but we never quite understood how he was going to accomplish it. He was only going to NYC; no other place would do. Obviously he could speak English, which he thought would be enough to get him a good job.  Maybe the young Albanian could run a motel.

Thinking it was just us and the Italo-Aussi, we were surprised to find another couple, bourgeois Frenchies of the World War II vintage, in the breakfast room. It’s always polite to converse a bit, so they told us they had arrived in the morning the previous day, taken their rooms with no problem, and gotten around to see the important sights. They were civil to the max and as cool as cucumbers in a well-seasoned vinaigrette. Their touristic savoir-faire  put us in the shade. 

About the time they were taking their gracious exit, “Au revoir, Monsieurs et Mesdames. Bonne continuation!”, enter stage right Signore Italo-Aussi. He shuffled in unshaven, disheveled, & dressed in his house-robe and slippers. Had he heard the hubbub & worried that he might miss breakfast? He rubbed his eyes in preparation to take up our conversation where it had left off the evening before. He was still unhappy about the management of the hotel, but he had rested and cooled down. He said that even though he was in fact residing in Italy where half of his relatives also lived, he would never get used to the way that Italians did things. We wanted to ask him what exactly was he doing in Italy, but we didn’t want to appear nosey. Au naturel, dramatic, and interesting, he chattered on, and we didn’t dare to stop his flow. For sure, such friendly conversations never last very long, as travelers need to be on their way.

Go figure. Put a mask on just about every character but the off-stage manager's voice & you'll have a comedia of sorts. We had not been tourists in the classic sense; in fact, we saw no sights at all. But, we surely felt like we got right into the heartbeat and style of old Lucca. It was about as close as we have ever come to participating in the cast of a Comedia del Arte. Between acts we had an outstanding dinner at the courtyard ristorante & our zimmers provided a luxurious rest & shower for the next entr'acte. Breakfast was the dénouement to our action-packed stay, or should I say, play.

*I wanted to take a photo of our “hotel” with the almost invisible door, but my camera battery had died. Alas! You’ll just have to take my word for it.

**Only one negative. It’s okay for the rooms to be small, we understand the lack of space in old Europe, but must you use wrought-iron furniture? It will surely snag your clothes and hurt you if you don’t take pains to move carefully & stay clear.