{"id":299,"date":"2017-09-19T08:11:55","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T08:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chrismeaker.com\/blog\/?p=299"},"modified":"2020-05-10T22:41:46","modified_gmt":"2020-05-10T22:41:46","slug":"11092017-the-italian-job-day-2-monday-lucca-montecatini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chrismeaker.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/19\/11092017-the-italian-job-day-2-monday-lucca-montecatini\/","title":{"rendered":"11\/09\/2017 – The Italian Job – Day 2 (Monday) – Lucca & Montecatini"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our first full day in Italy had seen the floods near the hotel reside and enable us to access our local railway station, where we caught the train to Lucca. The first thing we learnt about buying a train ticket in Italy is don’t leave it to the last minute. Although the ticket machines are good they are not fast.<\/p>\n

Lucca is a walled City to the North of Pisa dating from Roman times. It contains numerous churches that can be visited and towers that can be climbed. One of our holiday traits seems to be to climb the tallest object, mountain where we are visiting for the view. This time we went up the “Torre del Guingi” or Tree Tower, as it has trees growing in a garden at the top. The following is a view from the top.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Helen Meaker <\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. One unusual place is the “Anfiteatro Romano” which is the ancient amphitheatre where houses have been built into the old amphitheatre walls which is todays Plaza del Mercato. This is a 360 image of the plaza<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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    After Lucca we caught the train to Montecatini Terme which after having a panic of thinking we had got off at the wrong station (it has two), we eventually decided we had chosen the right one. From Montecatini Terme we took a funicular railway to the village of Montecatini Alto.
    \nThe railway was opened in 1898 and after closure in 1977 was reopened in 1982. It has two cars which are wound up\/down simultaneously passing in the middle<\/p>\n

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    Photo: Helen Meaker<\/span><\/p>\n

    Our evening meal was taken in the popular square in Montecatini Alto
    \n\"\"
    \nCouldn’t resist the traditional Italian dish of Pizza from the menu as shown below, although I must point out Helen didn’t consume both Pizzas.
    \n\"\"
    \nFinally it was time to head back down the mountain for the train back to Pisa, but while waiting for the funicular railway back down we were able to watch the sunset.
    \n\"\"<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Our first full day in Italy had seen the floods near the hotel reside and enable us to access our local railway station, where we caught the train to Lucca. The first thing we learnt about buying a train ticket in Italy is don’t leave it to the last minute….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,23,36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chrismeaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chrismeaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chrismeaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chrismeaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chrismeaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/chrismeaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":493,"href":"http:\/\/chrismeaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chrismeaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chrismeaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chrismeaker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}