Lucca to Buti - A day like any other

9/6 Lucca to Buti - 16.88 miles walked

So much did I like these walls, in fact, that I decided to walk around the entire perimeter before setting out. This would be a great thing to do at eight in the morning, or perhaps during an evening devoted entirely to this leisurely pursuit. But I am a hopelessly late sleeper, and was eager to take a big bite out of Tuscany, so I started 11 AM, planning to walk the walls and then continue without pause on my walk South.

It was a little over two miles around the perimeter, which might sound very small to you, but to me meant a good forty minutes. On the bright side, I saw a lot of Lucca that I had not seen the day before, including this tower with trees growing on it (look, a tower with trees on it, Vernita! NOW I'VE SEEN EVERYTHING!!!!!!), and came away once more with a favorable impression. Feeling glad to have skipped Pisa for this, I purchased three gigantic peaches, ate two on the spot, and left that medieval wonderland.

What to recall about the walk to Buti? Well, the beginning of the Tuscan countryside, at least how I had already imagined it. Little one-street towns with very little movement. An earth-shattering and soul-draining lack of public water fountains, something upon which I had come to rely very heavily. This marked the first time I had to go to a bar to buy water, a half-liter that I greedily drank in one gulp before filling up my trusty water sack in the bathroom.

Nothing else really sticks out about this day. When I got to Buti, I asked at a bar about where to sleep, grabbing a small "courtesy" beer in the process (it's rude, of course, to ask information at a bar without buying anything). The locals told me about a restaurant with some rooms to rent, and liking what I heard, I made my way there.

The restaurant only had matrimonial suites, which, though I could hardly have known at the time, would be a common response to my inquiries for lodging in Tuscany. I negotiated a good deal, dinner included, and promised to make a minimal mess. After washing my clothes in the shower, all the while making a minimal mess (no, really, I was respectful, I promise), I headed down for a splendid dinner, which I can still taste now: ravioli stuffed with cheese and figs in a saffron cream sauce, followed by pizza topped with fresh porcini mushrooms (welcome to mushroom season, Pat!), washed down with the obligatory half-liter of home-grown red. After a dessert and coffee (here coffee = espresso, unless you specify differently. I will treat the word from now on in the same manner), I slept like a prince in my king sized matrimonial bed, while my clothes dried on the windowsill.

No special message, no deep insight, just another day in paradise, picking my way randomly across Italy. Goodnight!