Left our beautiful Piedmonte village and the little friends we had made.
Set off to drive the 150kms to Lucca. It came highly recommended and in the past we had read a bit and it sounded beautiful.
There were a few omens on the way… Only 150kms but it took 5 and a half hours… We had it all, sheer drops around mountains, hair pin bends, tunnel-100 meter stretch-tunnel-100 meter stretch and so on, lost count of the tunnels after about 40! ; nose to tail traffic on motorway following 2 x 3 car and motorbike accidents. Only good thing is that Italian drivers don’t really do the rubber neck thing to see what happened, they are all in far too much of a hurry to let anything slow them down.
3 small people in the back of Da Van were pretty good – apart from the mandatory spells of gouging and squealing from the two girls (and towards the end Duncan and me too!). Hormonal, tired, hungry and hot – and to top it all a walled city (naturelle!) where you park 400m away from your accommodation, dragging your 3 small children, luggage and your by now fatter than ever arses to your room on the 3rd floor… mamma Mia.
Duncs is possibly the hungriest of us all and in all fairness the most tired after the driving. We check in and then walk out onto a very typical Italian windy cobbled street. It seems okay and full of character…. We get to the Antiteatro (big round area, too tired to explain…)’ lots of restaurants, sun shining, so all good. Duncs leaves us sitting in a nondescript cafe (we argued over which one!) and says please order me anything to eat and a cold beer! He then has to dash back to car after realising all his valuables are in it – except sadly the car is even further away now in a long term car park. (Incase you’re wondering yes this is apparently my fault).
We are all a wee bit ratty, kids by now foaming at the mouth they are so tired and hungry. Eventually we get given menus, in English (boo hoo now I have to stop pretending I’m Italiano!) we look at it and George and I look at one another and decide lets go! It’s not quite eggs, chips and peas but it’s not far off. So the little gastro snobs we have become we ignore the instructions of Don Duncan in search of what we were hoping for confident that he will be happy we saved him from this.
It gets worse, we leave the cafe and I tell the kids they can have a gelati … Of course as they have barely eaten all day! The Herbert serving answers me in English -English pinglish. We are surrounded by American and English accents – not really what we had got used to in the last couple of weeks! Ha ha, turns out lots of tourists are loving Lucca! I give myself a mini slap round the chops, two weeks in a village does not one Italian nor ban anyone else from enjoying it! Although I sort of get why the French resented Peter Mayle now …
And then just when I am convinced my stupid momentary lapses of judgement are all in a previous life…. I agree when George and Sophie ask if they can look around a few shops by themselves for 10 minutes. I’ll wait here for Daddy! As I stand with Millie in her stroller under a medieval gate it hits me that wasn’t donee artist call. Neither of them is wearing a watch!. 5 minutes lapses, then 10. I’m literally gagging with worry now…
You guessed it, Duncan has reappeared, he has his wallet, a heavy bag, red hot face and stumbling like Jesus at the 9th station, from sitting in the car for so long! I want to laugh because I’m so nervous so instead I cry. Once he realizes the children are ‘missing in a foreign very busy hot city, because their mother i a numpty’ his anger at me for not just ordering food vanishes. Its pretty clear he would now like to strangle me for being so vague… I cannot speawhen he says which shop are they in? Which way did they go? I have to confess I don’t know.
It all ended well… Thank you whoever was looking after us. Duncan grabs the stroller from me and marches off. I stand there like a limp biscuit wanting to rewind 20 minutes when i had a family intact! A few minutes later they all reappear, George and Sophie were looking at gifts for their friends…. I found us a little Pizzeria down a side street with a bit more authenticity, we all ate well, Duncs and I drank a couple of litres of vino rossi and even got to sit outside on the balcony and chat about the last couple of weeks …
Things were looking up… Until the bastardos mosquito decided to buzz around us from 3 am!