I have a special treat for you today with not just one, but two travel throwback photos from my photographic archives. These are two black and white photographs I took with my film camera back in the late ’90s. My family at the time were stationed in Napoli, Italia for our second tour. We visited Firenze (Florence) periodically while living in southern Italy. However, my favourite location in Tuscany is the town of Lucca. An ancient medivelal city with Renaissance-era city walls that are still quite intact. You can walk around on top of them or even rent a bicycle to enjoy the sights from the wall. Pictured below my younger sister Zoë sits on the edge of the wall surrounded by the daisies in the grass. I remember plucking the little childhood flowers to make daisy chains to wear in our hair.
Perhaps one of my most favourite memories of being in Lucca was when my parents took us to see James Taylor perform. The concert was near the Basilica di San Frediano in the Piazza Anfiteatro. The piazza is elliptical-shaped and closed in by an embrace of medieval houses around it. Sting had stopped by to visit with his friend James and even got on stage to perform with him during the concert. It was a wonderful memory I enjoyed with my parents and sister many summers ago.
“That night I looked up at those same stars,
but I didn’t want any of those things.
I didn’t want Egypt, or France,
or far-flung destinations.
I just wanted to go back to my life from my childhood,
just to visit it, and touch it, and to convince myself
that yes, it had been real.”
― Jenny Lawson,
Let’s Pretend This Never Happened:
A Mostly True Memoir
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Q: Have you been to Lucca, Italy?
