Before we left Pisa, our two friends took us to the old town of Lucca, which has a conflicted history with Pisa. We didn't explore because we wanted to get going, and Mary Lynne had an eye infection that we had to get fixed. Once on the road again, we got picked up by Mario, who dropped us off on the autostrade to Florence.
You never know what's going to happen while hitching. These fellows picked us up and asked if we'd like to go to a wedding reception. It was amazing. That's the glorious thing about hitchhiking as opposed to taking a bus, you get taken to places you would never see, meet people you would never meet. Here's me handing Mary Lynne her purse, which was almost pushed off the wall into the canyon below.
Florence is a fabulous city if you love art. The fabulous Galleria dell'Accademia is where you can find the original David by Michelangelo. There are other fabulous art galleries too: the Bobili Gardens and the Uffizi Gallery.
After Florence we hitched with the intention of getting to Rome, but instead ended up at Lac Trasimeno, north of Rome. Two fellows who picked us up, Franko and Augusto, took us to a restaurant where we feasted on an 8-course meal with some of their friends. It was loads of fun. Afterwards, we set up our tent and camped beside the lake. We woke up in the morning with a huge, smelly blob in our tent. I thought Mary Lynne had been sick but she protested she hadn't and it did look raw hamburger. We thought perhaps somebody had played a joke on us, but we were camped out in quite a remote area. Oh well, a day for swimming and tanning!
We met two Italian families on the beach and went out for supper with one of their uncles named Feduce, who happened to own a huge villa on Lake Trasimeno. He invited us to stay for a night and his villa turned out to be a historic building filled with Napoleonic era antiques and art works; breathtaking. Unfortunately, Feduce was more interested in his recent acquisitions, Mary Lynne and I, and I wound up fleeing from him during the night, down the stairs and around the villa. It was quite comical. Fortunately, he had bad knees. Hey, we said pleasant goodbyes anyway and I gave him a hug.
Hitching to Rome the following day, we got picked up a fellow named Franko, who just happened to own the pensione we had stayed at in Rome. What was even more spectacular is that we saw Feduce when we got out of Franko's car in Rome. What a coincidence! Rome is spectacular, and even though it's crowded and hot, well worth the visit! So much to see.
