Livorno, Italy: We did a shore excursion today, to Lucca. It's a town known for three things: first, it's very complete city walls that circle the town. History says Lucca's bitter rival was Pisa, a port city whose wealth was based on trade. Pisa's port has long since silted up, so the current port is Livorno, or as the Brits called it, Leghorn.
Lucca's second claim to fame is the facade of the church of St. Michele. Our Italian guide, whose English was flawlessly that of an American college girl (thank heavens) described that facade as a gaudy display of the city's merchants' wealth. It surely is over the top. There are three dozen columns done in nearly that many styles, each an exercise in excess.
The third thing for which Lucca is known is religious music - composers and musicians. Puccini is remembered here.
What the DrsC will remember about Lucca was the thunderstorm. Rain started gently about the time we reached the cathedral or duomo - very nice perpendicular Gothic, by the way. It was raining steadily as we reached the Roman amphitheater which, like Diocletian's Palace in Split (Croatia), has been inbuilt by later folks who needed a place to live, do business or both.
As the guided portion of the tour ended and the "free time" in downtown Lucca began, thunder, lightning, and buckets of rain commenced. We took dubious shelter under the canvas awning of a gelato shop and ate ice cream while Lucca experienced a deluge not unlike that promised France by Charles de Gaulle after his passing.
Unfortunately, it continued to rain hard as we walked from town center to outside the city walls to our bus and was still raining briskly when we exited the bus to walk the boarding ramp to the ship. As I sloshed through the rain I couldn't help thinking WY and CA need rain like this, both are dry.
We were a bunch of bedraggled wet kittens who really appreciated the warm beach towels with which Princess met us. I'm glad we'd remembered our umbrellas, which at least kept our heads and tummies dry.
Once aboard I literally wrung water out of the right sleeve of my denim over shirt; my chinos were wet to the knees, polo shirt and sox wet too. The other DrC was in a similar fix. Our cabin's bathroom had wet clothes hanging everywhere.
