Everything's Huge But The Shower

Monday. We did some last minute wandering. We visited the Church of San Frediano. Jim was interested in seeing the inside of the church because the pope who had it built included 40 Roman columns inside to remind the pilgrims that this was just a quick stop on the way to Rome. Inside we found the beautiful columns and also we found the body ( yes! The actual body...) of Saint Zita...the saint of lost keys! We procure some meat and cheese and spent 5 minutes describing crackers in Italian to learn they are called ...crackers! We thought about climbing the Guinigi tower to see the trees that grow on top, but then thought better of the 227 steps needed to reach the top. We opted instead to rent the tandem bici...double the fun, double the terror and less than a euro more! Lucky for me the wall is way less congested on Monday afternoon and the tandem bici did not offer Jim the same maneuverability of his own. Since I was in the back all I could do was pedal, like the roman rowers of old, with no idea where we were heading or what was ahead of us. I could only see the frightened faces of the people as they flashed by on the side. This bici came with a working bell, and Jim worked it! In the end, we made two and a half laps around the wall. It's a good thing we are leaving tomorrow Jim had started recruiting for a three seat bici! We returned to Leo's for dinner. I took a picture of Leo but forgot to also take one with my phone so sadly there isn't one to post!

Tuesday. We are packed and ready to head out of Lucca. During our wandering, Jim has discovered an underground exit from the city center and we use it to head to the train station. We have our salami, cheese and crackers salata in hand along with water from the Lucca fountains. We are ready for the train ride. We ate our lunch on the second train and arrived in Venice without much fan fair. When we got to our hotel the young man at the desk begins with..." I know you requested the room 30 but there is the problem with the room"...I'm thinking, oh no, here we go, we'll be in the closet under the stairs, if there even is a room for us..."so we have you the 24, our most beautiful room, you must be the good friends of Giuliano (the owner)...we smile and nod our heads and go up the stairs and he opens what appears to be a hall way (like I said the closet). In actuality it's the entrance hall to our three room suite! On the desk there is a bottle of prosecco with two glasses and a Venetian hankie to decorate them. We feel like royalty, although after a day traveling we look more like vagabonds. We unpack and begin to settle into our suite ( did I mention it has three rooms?). Jim, ever the organizer, takes our toothbrushes to the proper toothbrushing area and comes back to report....this huge room and still the shower is small! We put our feet up, pour some prosecco and contemplate how Jim will fit in the shower...Dinner is wonderful, the waiter jokes with us in Italian and English, we drink way too much wine and then he treated us to limoncello. We finish our first night in Venice with a ride down the Grand Canal and drift off to sleep the comfort of our (3 room!) suite.