Our last day of traveling was to Pisa and Lucca. I may be speaking for myself, but I think we all were a bit sad knowing that it was our last day trip and our time in Italy was almost over. It was also a bit of a bummer because it was supposed to rain heavily all day.
First, we had a long bus ride to Pisa. Not only were there were a TON of
people the moment we stepped off the bus, but it was pouring rain. We
herded ourselves into the baptistery to try to dry off and that was a
pretty cool place to escape the rain! We learned that the baptistery had
some amazing acoustics and we had the opportunity to listen to them
“test” the acoustics, which is something they do every hour. Then we
made our way into the Cathedral. The body of St. Ranieri, the patron
saint of Pisa was encapsulated in one of the wings of the Cathedral and
it might sound odd to say that it was beautiful. The entire Cathedral
was strikingly beautiful. It is just amazing how much detail went into
every part of that Cathedral. The ceilings, floors, walls were all works
of art. After we made our way through the Cathedral, we braved the rain
again and went out to help hold up the tower. There were so many
creative photos being taken, it was fun to watch people try to get the
correct angle. After everyone took their photos with the tower, we
walked through the vendors and made our way back to the bus.
We had a bit of a drive to get to Lucca and it rained the whole time. I was particularly excited about Lucca because I heard we could ride bikes on the wall that surrounds the city. Unfortunately, the rain required us to find a nice restaurant to spend a couple of hours. We walked around for a little bit searching for the best place to eat and we came to what seemed to be an alleyway that led to a courtyard. We found three nice restaurants there to choose from. Our group split up and three of us ended up at a restaurant that opened only 10 days prior. We were so excited! We had a wonderful meal and drank some fabulous wine. We made friends with the owner and he introduced us to the chef, an American from San Francisco. We learned about his culinary training and he told us about his grandmother who shared her fudge recipe with him that was enjoyed in his family for 80 years. It was delicious! The rain stopped while we finished our meal and we had a little bit of time to explore Lucca. We found some gelato and enjoyed the charming little town for about 45 minutes before we had to leave for the bus. We saw many of the faculty members enjoying spritzes in various pubs and joined them for one before we had to leave.
After a long bus ride home, we had our last dinner at Casa Cares and had one final meeting with Paul to debrief our experiences. We all had a chance to talk about what impacted us while we were together at Casa Cares. Many of us became emotional as we spoke about how our experiences at Casa Cares and in Italy changed us. I think we were trying to soak up as much as we could. After our debrief, we played games in the basement with some of the volunteers at Casa Cares to celebrate our final night in the villa. Once we finished our games, we all stayed up late packing and planning future trips. I think we all made great connections in Italy. And needless to say, I think we will all remember our time at Casa Cares very fondly.
Emily
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