Ciao again from Firenze!
Well I promised a post about Italian food, finally, and here it is, finally. You see life abroad is hard, wake up, eat, do stuff, eat, nap, go out, eat, sleep and then do it all over again. I think the three necessary evils of Florence are vino, mozzarella and pasta. And olive oil. And nutella. And kinder bueno candy. And this candy called Milka that is kind of like a chocolate covered s’more. It’s all just too good.
This post is coming ‘atcha from Lucca, Italy. A tiny, ancient, roman town about an hour west of Firenze. We went on a slightly dreary Saturday for the day. Here’s what you should know about Lucca: rent bikes, it’s really small, lots of candy and chocolate shops and I had really REALLY good pasta. There’s lots of little churches in Lucca and a lot of them are in the Gothic style which is change from the Renaissance design of Florence. It was a nice day but I don’t think you need more than a day there.
Food wise I quite enjoyed Lucca. Molto bene! There are candy stands everywhere you turn taunting you with sour straws, an array of gummy candies, chocolates and “Lucca chips” (which are like fennel chips–not my style). And of course, there’s pasta. We went on a tour of Lucca where I was tormented by all the candy stands that I wasn’t allowed to stop at yet because our tour guide didn’t wanna make a detour. Then we went and ate lunch at a little Trattoria. I wasn’t expecting much from this place because, well, to be honest, Lucca hadn’t wowed me yet.
Well this little Trattoria defied my mediocre expectations. I ordered Pear and Gorgonzola Tagliatelle. I was debating between that and something healthier–like pizza–but ya know, when in Lucca. I loveeee the combo of fruit and cheese and especially when paired with another favorite, pasta! It was melt in your mouth o-mazing, good. It was the best pasta I’ve had since being in Italy. My friends, that is a loaded statement because I have had a LOT of pasta while in Italy, and a lot of good pasta at that. I’m on a search for a superior pasta and I promise I will let you know when I find it. For now this takes the gold. Heck it takes the silver and bronze too. (Can you tell I’m going through Olympic withdrawal? Can’t watch it over here). The pasta was fresh and delicious. The sauce was just the right amount of Gorgonzola flavor with a touch of cream. The pears were soft and sweet–definitely cut the sharpness of the cheese perfectly. There’s really just nothing else to say about the pasta. SO good.
The chocolate shops were also a high light. There were many to choose from but we settled on one near the place we got dropped off..wish I could tell you where it was. But Google it if you are ever in Lucca it’s well worth it! I got a two layered chocolate square–it was milk and dark chocolate and a bunch of other assorted truffles–all of them good. My friends got this gooseberry truffle that they loved and I thought it was so pretty I had to take a picture.
All in all Lucca was a good trip. I think food wise it was better than sight seeing, but in my case that’s probably true for most cities 
. More blogs to come from Italy soon! We celebrated Carnevale in Venice this past weekend and it was SO amazing. Can’t wait to share lots of stories!
Buono Eating,
Whitney
Montecatini is where we stayed but we had a woman discuss/lecture our group about Italian food and she was from Lucca. The meal she had made for us was unbelieveable! We never got past the antipasti!
A few days later we visited Lucca and I never saw such an interesting old town. It was enclosed in a dry moat and all the streets within were of cobblestones. Naturally, we never got to the modern city which was good ~ modern being the key word (yick). My strong point is photography and Lucca was outstanding!
Maybe we should go to Lucca together ~ wink, wink!
looks like a lot of fun