After my parents, Jeremy, and I left Turin, we headed south for the coast near Cinque Terre, hoping to spend some days by the ocean and explore the towns around there. We didn’t have any set plans until a few days before leaving, and we looked for last-minute houses on Airbnb and VRBO until we found one that looked perfect. It was a picturesque Tuscan villa with a pool, near the town of Lucca.
The pretty Tuscan villa that wasn’t meant to be.
Basically, the house ended up being waaaay far up windy, narrow roads, pretty far from Lucca, and the host accidentally booked the wrong house for us and it was too small. We decided not to stay there, and at 7pm on a Saturday night, had nowhere to sleep. We luckily found a hotel right outside the center of Lucca, and stayed there for the night. We got to the hotel pretty late, and we didn’t feel like walking the mile into town to eat dinner, so we did something I haven’t done in years: ate at McDonald’s. I was hoping they would have some interesting things on the menu since McDonald’s in other countries are known for this, but the only different things they had were pasta and beer pretty much. They did sell a pistachio McFlurry though, and I had to try it. I am not very picky and can eat pretty much anything, but I actually couldn’t stand it.
Vespa inside McDonald’s.
My gross pistachio McFlurry.
I read online about how the walls that surround the old city center of Lucca had been turned into a walking/bicycle path. I didn’t know how long we’d be in the area, so I woke up early the next morning to make sure I got a chance to run the walls. The city was nice and quiet, and the only people out were runners (I heard a fellow American runner comment on my San Diego Half Marathon shirt) and a few bicyclists. The wall circles the city, and is 4km in length.
Early morning streets in Lucca.
Up on the walls – the path is very wide!
The weather was perfect and there was so much to look at, the run went by very fast. I did a total of four miles, then went to the tiny hotel gym to get some strength training in, and use the Stairmaster.
This was a lot harder than I remembered.
Before we left for our next destination, we took a quick walk around Lucca. It’s a really charming town!
Perfecting my tourist pose.
Gelato place with swings inside. Too bad it wasn’t open.
This is kind of heartbreaking.
Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July!
Lily Runs the World 
Your tourist pose is on point lady! I’ll start practicing mine now for when we’re together in LESS THAN A MONTH!!!! EEEK! xoxo
I still can’t believe it!! Can’t wait to see you!
What a beautiful town! I love the idea of running on a town’s walls haha. So unique 🙂 and swings inside a gelato store?? I need to go there haha
I know, it was so cool! And I loved seeing so many other runners out. I really wish that gelato place had been open!
Its too bad that Villa didnt work out- the pool looked beautiful! Pasta and beer at McDonalds sounds pretty weird:) Sorry the mcflurry was so disappointing!I guess you will have to just stick to real European gelato and ice cream.
Pretty sure I have eaten enough gelato to more than make up for it, so I can put it out of my mind!
My mind is blown at this McDonald’s stuff.
#1 You must’ve been very desperate for food for going there
#2 I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that they sell beer
#3 I never even knew they had a different menu in different countries
#4 The pistachio McFlurry looks absolutely disgusting, but bravo for trying something new?
However, the rest of this place looks amazing!
We had been driving all day, we were starving, it was 10pm, McDonald’s next door… It had to happen. You should check out all the stuff they sell in different countries, it’s pretty interesting! http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/11/weird-stuff-mcdonalds-sells-around.html
Beautiful photos, once again! Also–that Stairmaster looks about as old as the basilica.
hahah I think it might have been!
Oh my gosh once again your pictures are amazing.
Running the wall looks like such a cool experience.
Thank you so much! It was definitely a highlight of my running so far 🙂
Amazing! But I cannot believe you’re in the land of amazing food and went to McD’s. For shame! Ha, is that lion smoking a cigar?
Amazing pics as always!
Believe you me, after being in Italy a month, I have more than made up for it with delicious food. Hence the approaching roundness…
No wonder you guys are tired! I’m glad the food in Italy didn’t disappoint, but honestly, I really don’t know how that would even be possible. I love the pictures of people trying to get shots of holding up the leaning tower! 😀 Can’t wait to see where you’ll head next… Scotland, maybe? 😉