Coronavirus update, Lucca walls and the trash

April 24, 2020 by JLF

Coronavirus update

Several people have recently asked me about the status of the coronavirus emergency here. The worst is over now for Italy and the restrictions are slowly being lifted. A few examples:

Restaurants have been allowed to deliver food to your house. Starting today, we can pick up food at the restaurant but need to pre-order and they will tell us when to pick it up so no crowds form. Rumors are that we’ll be able to go to a restaurant starting May 18, but all tables need to be at least 2 meters apart. Traditionally they are only inches apart, so the restaurant capacities will be far decreased.
Food stores, pharmacies, gas stations and other true essentials have never closed and we are experiencing very few shortages. Starting this week, book stores, stationary stores and children clothing/shoe stores could open. Apparently, the kids are running out of clothes that fit and supplies needed for online school! Rumors are that most other stores will be opened by May 11^th. Yesterday I saw many storekeepers preparing their stores for reopening.
Moving about is quite restricted today. When we leave our house, we need to fill out a form stating where we are coming from, where we are going, and why. Police can stop anyone to check the paperwork and we see police patrolling every time we go out. Legitimate reasons include going to work, shopping for necessities, health care, and taking trash out (see below!). We can now take walks with a dog, small child, or by yourself, but need to stay within 200 meters of our house. Fortunately, the area around our apartment is gorgeous and I have enjoyed these walks. I expect that these restrictions will be relaxed over the next several weeks. One rumor is that we’ll be able to travel freely within our region starting May 4^th. That would mean all of Tuscany is open to us… but I’m not counting on that!

We get daily updates of the number of people infected, in intensive care, recovered, and deaths – for all of Italy, the region of Tuscany, the province that we live in and the city we live in. In the city that we live in (Lucca, population 88,000 in the city and surrounding areas), there have been 202 people diagnosed with the virus, 13 are currently in the hospital and 14 have died.

So, it is around us but not too bad. Neither Jim nor I have been sick since we arrived. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we didn’t get it, so we wear masks when we go out in case we are carriers and don’t realize it. And masks are now required for anyone outside of their homes.

The Beauty of Lucca… its walls!

Lucca is one of the many “walled” cities of Tuscany. The walls were built to defend the city from warring parties, generally other cities such as Florence and Pisa, and occasionally other countries. Since the days before the Roman Empire, Lucca has had multiple walls to address the city’s expansion and changing threats. This aerial map shows how Lucca expanded since the Roman Empire days:

The reddish square represents the Roman town of Lucca, laid out in a very orderly grid fashion. The Roman wall was about 7 meters high and 2.5 meters wide. There are few traces remaining of the Roman wall; only one portion is available to see above ground.

The greenish area was surrounded by a wall during the medieval period, which was finished around 1270. This wall originally had several gates, two remain today. Porta dei Borghi is close to our apartment, so I’ve enjoyed taking pictures of it on walks and from our apartment. Wouldn’t it be cool to live above the gate?

Porta San Gervasio originally had a drawbridge and moat, but both are gone today. Fortunately the starry design underneath the archway and some of the artwork remain. I took this picture in 2019 during one of our visits. It feels odd to be walking through the town and see a gate in the middle of the city!

The yellowish area of the map represents the expansion of Lucca during the Renaissance era. The walls built during this era still go completely around the historic district of Lucca today. They are 4.2 km around, 30 meters wide at its base, 18 meters at the top, 7 meters in height, and were completed in 1650, after over 100 years of constructions. These walls are so wide because they needed to be wider than a cannon ball could be launched. Fortunately, the walls were transformed into a public park in the late 1800s. Today, the Lucchese people and tourists walk, bicycle, picnic, exercise, and relax on the wall. As I mentioned in my last post, the walls are now closed because of the coronavirus. Too many people were gathering on the walls as they have done since the 1800’s. These walls are one of the biggest attractions in Lucca. I’m sure that future posts will include lots of pictures taken from these walls.

Everyday life in Lucca… the trash and recycling

Everyday life in Lucca is different than in the United States. Some things are much better (plentiful fresh food available daily), some are worse (the bureaucracy!) and some are just different. Part of the reason that we moved to Italy was to experience these differences… In this and upcoming blog posts, I’ll talk about some of these differences.

Where we lived in Virginia, we kept 2 very large bins in our garage. Twice a week, the garbage truck came to pick up trash from one of the bins and once a week, they picked up the recycling in the other bin. It’s different in Lucca.

They are very serious about recycling and we need to separate all recycling into four categories: paper, multi material (including plastic and metal), glass, and organics. Because there are no garbage disposals here, any wasted food goes into “organics”. This can get smelly quickly! There are long lists that tell you exactly where to put every kind of waste. Whatever remains goes into the non-recyclable.

When we first arrived, the apartment had a container for organics, but we just used separate bags for each. Last week, we purchased our very own fine recycling bin for the kitchen. Much better now!

There are sets of recycling bins on the street that match these categories. The openings are quite small, so trash and recycling goes out daily. To open the bin, you need a card that is registered to us. Our realtor spent weeks working to get our card for us (and lent us one in the meantime). You need to use your card each time you open each bin, so that they can track exactly who is using which bins! I just read that “the citizens will pay for the actual amount of unsorted waste produced and conferred to the islands.” How is that for being serious about recycling???

I plan to continue posting to my blog every few weeks, highlighting something that I find beautiful, a bit about how everyday life is different than in the United States, and some personal updates. Let me know if there are topics you want me to write about!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

April 5, 2020 by JLF

The Good

The pace of life is a lot slower for us right now. The coronavirus restrictions force us to limit our activities outside of the house. We have been able to use this time to slowly settle into Lucca and our apartment. I feel more rested, peaceful, and content than I can ever remember. Because we are in a completely new environment, it has not been difficult to create new patterns and habits that align with the restrictions.

Other good stuff:

Our local church has been meeting online. It’s a very small church and their services are very interactive. So, no Facebook Live streaming for this crowd! We use Zoom. The first 15 minutes are spent saying “Buongiorno” or “Ciao!” to each other. Then the service starts. Various people participate in the service itself. Very cool to see the real sense of community of this church. Jim and I sit with Google Translate open and try to follow the gist of the service. And read the sermon notes afterwards. 😊
Jim has discovered two wonderful places to buy wine. Jim visits Ricardo at Vineria Dolce Vita, a great place to buy local and everyday Tuscan wines, and many local food specialties. And Jim visits Pasquale at his restaurant (which is closed) to buy older Italian wines. Both of these businesses have lost most of their income stream so Jim is “helping” by purchasing their wine. 😊
Jim and I have been enjoying cooking and eating the wonderful fresh and local food. Artichokes are in season now. Tonight I’m making an Artichoke, Sausage & Goat Cheese Egg Pie. I have all of the ingredients needed except the “soft goat cheese”. I have one more store to check; if not, I’ll use a different kind of cheese. And I bought lots of fresh artichokes for it. 😊
We love our apartment. There is a lot of light and plenty of space. There are more than 100 steps to reach it, but there is also an elevator. I’ve been going up the steps at least once per day. No TV yet, but we spend the evenings doing puzzles and playing cribbage or Scopa. A TV is supposed to be delivered on Monday! 😊

The Bad

Our bank! I wrote in my November blog post about how difficult and different it was to open our bank account. Well… that was only the beginning! Upon arrival in Lucca, we got out our debit cards, memorized our PINs and were very pleased that they worked without a problem. Our apartment had furniture but not much else, so we had a lot of shopping to do! The first few days in shops in Lucca, then set up our Amazon account.

After a few days, I decided I better check the status of our account online. I couldn’t get into it and soon locked up my account. The only way to unlock it was to visit the bank. I did so and they unblocked it. I tried a few more times then locked it again. Back to the bank branch… I was taken to the man who set up our account. He wouldn’t let me in his office and told me not to come to the branch again (while the coronavirus restrictions were still in place). I should just send him an email if I had any problems. He unlocked my account again and gave me a phone number to call to get the correct PIN; apparently, I was using the wrong PIN. I called the number four times. Getting through the phone menu is tough when you can’t understand the messages. When I did talk to a person, first my identity had to be validated. I got through that once. I explained my problem with a mix of Italian/English, she tried to fix the problem then suggested I call back the next day. What???

Then the next surprise – our cards stopped working and our Amazon account got closed down. Why??? Turns out that we have a 4000 € per month for certain kind of transactions. We guessed that we hit the limit, but couldn’t confirm because I still couldn’t access the account online. I sent an email to my “friend” at the branch explaining my failures at calling the bank and asking about the limit. Friday someone from the bank called who spoke pretty good English. Turns out that their security app was messed up for my account. She got me online. Our limit was increased to 5000 € per month but we are still trying to figure out which kinds of transactions that it applies to.

And our Amazon account is still closed down. Yep, we tried adding a US credit card. Yep, we tried setting up another account. Yep, we tried to use the chat capability. Nope, none of these worked.

During the times of frustration with the bank, I looked around for a different bank. I didn’t find one that would be better, so we are sticking with this bank (for now).

Next, I could tell you the saga of getting the required trash card or how it took three weeks and four visits by the internet technician to establish our connection, but I won’t…

The Ugly

Italy is a beautiful country. Lucca is a beautiful city. Really… what could be ugly here? But… if you look out one of our windows of our wonderful altana, you see a building that can only be characterized as “ugly”. The front of it is on Via Fillungo, the main walking street of Lucca. The front is beautiful, but the roof and side are ugly. I’ve included a picture just so that I was able to use this title for this blog posting. However, we really don’t spend much time look at that building because if you look up you see two amazing towers with mountains in the background. Ahhhhh…

Stay home and stay healthy! #andràtuttobene

San Frediano and the coronavirus

March 21, 2020 by JLF

We are starting to settle into our new home in Lucca Italy. I’ve even had some time to relax, gaze out of the windows, take a few pictures and start identifying the town birds.

San Frediano church. There are three great churches in Lucca; two are very orate and are in the Pisan style; and the third is San Frediano, a typical Romanesque church – solid, severe and simple. Except for that amazing frontal mosaic! The mosaic was added in the later 1200’s as the town’s main cathedral was getting a new facade and the caretakers of San Frediano wanted their own facade update but one that would be different from the ornate cathedral.

The church is one of the most striking buildings that we can see from our altana. The altana is a delightful square room in our apartment that rises above the rest of the building. It has windows on all four sides with remarkable views from each. The sun sets next to San Frediano so I started my Lucca photography journey focused on it, and included a few pictures from other times of the day.

“The [mosaic] work shows the Ascension of Christ in a mandorla held by two angels. Below are the twelve Apostles, looking up at the miraculous event. The writing makes clear the context: ‘Why do the Galileans look towards the sky?’ This, Galileans, is the son of God rising above.’” (from The Wanderer’s Guide to Lucca by Lindquist.)

Construction of the church itself was mostly completed by 1147, although many modifications, enhancements, and improvements have been made in the centuries since. During my May 2019 visit to Lucca, I went inside. Lots of beautiful artwork and I look forward to returning once we can freely move around and public buildings are re-opened. I may include some interior pictures on a blog post in the future.

“These days”. That’s the phrase that many are using to refer to this time with the coronavirus pandemic underway and many restrictions in place to force “social distancing”. Italy was hit hard and early by the coronavirus and has taken many measures to “flatten the curve” of the coronavirus infections. Our day-to-day life is a lot different than it will be later. But we’ve accepted it and are doing our best at minimizing our risk and those around us, while slowly getting our apartment set up. Jim is doing most of the shopping as I have Crohn’s disease, which is an autoimmune disorder. He is becoming familiar with some of the people in our building and shops that he visits. Eventually we hope to get to know all of them. Having this as a shared experience may be valuable in deepening our relationships with the Lucchesi people.

One of the special aspects of Lucca is the wide Renaissance walls that go all around Lucca. The walls serve as the town’s main park. People walk, run, picnic, bicycle, etc. on it. About a week ago, a decision was made to shut it down completely, as too many people were bending the rules and using it as a gathering spot. Below are pictures of the empty wall – a situation that I’ll likely never see after these restrictions are lifted.

Residency status. The visa that we were so anxious to receive is only the first step in obtaining permanent residency. Upon arrival, we had 8 working days to submit our application for the permesso di soggiorno, or permission to live here. Given all the restrictions, the deadline was relaxed so we had plenty of time. But we realized that we had no document that showed that we were residents and were uncomfortable with that situation. We decided to see how far through the process we could get. The first step is to go the Post Office, which is typically a lengthy and confusing experience. I walked in and there were three windows open with two customers. I explained what I needed in my lousy Italian and left within minutes with the forms that we needed. What??? Something simpler because of the coronavirus regulations??? I filled out the lengthy form with lots of help from resources available on the Internet and included some of the same attachments that went with the visa applications. You need to include a 16€ stamp that you get from one of the tabaccaia stores. One is a few doors from our apartment and took just a few minutes to get. Then both of us needed to return to the Post Office. After a short wait, one of the people at the window quickly looked through the package and it seemed that this was just going to be too easy! Then she asks us how much we needed to pay for the permit. We didn’t know but she said that it our responsibility. So… we sat down in some chairs and started googling. We quickly learned that it was between €40 and €100. We decided on €50 based on some confusing descriptions and went back to the same window. Nope, she said; €50 was not the right number. She didn’t know what the right amount was, but it wasn’t €50. She said that it wasn’t a whole number. I was ready to go home so that I could do proper research, but Jim insisted on staying at the Post Office. Back to the chairs and back to googling. I finally found it on Italian immigration site. The right answer was €70.46. She seemed happy with that and gave us the all-important receipts which served as a temporary residency permit. Next step is a visit to the Questura in mid-June to get the official permit. Then the Carta d’identità…

Our prayers these days are focused on the coronavirus – for the health of all the medical workers and patients, the Luccesi community, our new church family, for the shopkeepers we meet, and for all our family and friends back in the U.S. We are all dealing with our first pandemic that it significantly impacting each of our lives.

#iorestoacasa

#andràtuttobene

Journey to our new home

March 11, 2020 by JLF

Well, this wasn’t anything like I imagined. The coronavirus hit Italy hard and the situation has changed daily since we received our visas. But now we are settling into our new home.

We received the visas on Thursday, February 27th and made reservations that day to Pisa. We got a great flight from Orlando to Houston to Munich to Pisa. Crazy to go to Houston, but we needed only 3 flights to go from one medium-sized airport to a small one in about 15 hours. We got business class tickets with points that allowed us to check three 70 pound bags each. That’s 420 pounds of stuff and we could each take two carryons. We wanted to maximize what we could bring along with us.

We were in Ohio at the time, visiting family and friends. And keeping an eye on the news of coronavirus in Italy. Some of the northern towns were locked down, but we felt confident because there were no cases in Lucca and few in Tuscany.

On March 4th, I heard from an American couple that lives in Lucca returned on a flight from the US through Pisa. No problems but they said the flight was quite empty. New problem… flights were being cancelled because there just weren’t enough people flying. Sure enough, on March 5th, we received an email stating that our flight was changed to land in Florence with a 5 hour layover in Munich. We were also watching the news about the growing coronavirus problems which were spreading throughout Italy. If we didn’t travel soon, we were concerned that our move would be delayed for months.

So we completed our packing and rented a big SUV. Derek took us to the Orlando airport and helped us get it checked in. The maximum weight for each piece of luggage is 70 pounds. Boxes 1 to 3 were 68 pounds, 4 and 5 were a bit lighter, and the suitcase was exactly 70 pounds. Jim did a great job of preparing all of the luggage. 🙂

No problems with our flight. We had a good night’s sleep flying from Houston to Munich. This flight was about half full, so clearly people are just deciding not to travel. Upon arrival in Munich, they took a quick look at our passports, didn’t ask any questions and didn’t even look at the visas! We spent the long layover in the Lufthansa lounge and were thankful for the clean and warm showers. The flight into Florence was less than half filled. We had our temperatures taken then juggled our massive luggage out to the front where a driver with a van was waiting for us. Some of the boxes were wet and starting to break down, but we squeezed them into the van and headed off to Lucca, less than an hour away.

We were greeted by Debora, but there were no hugs or the typical Italian cheek kisses. With help from the driver and Casper, a member of our church, we got all the luggage into our apartment. Even though there is an elevator, there are still several steps up and down to get to the main area of our apartment. Debora briefed us on the apartment and gave us a warning that she expected all of Italy to be “locked down” within a day or two. Yikes! We had several critical tasks to be done the next day…

Tuesday, March 10th was our first full day in Lucca. A new set of rules were in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus by encouraging everyone to stay home. We weren’t allowed to leave Lucca without a good reason, pubs and restaurants closed at 6pm and everyone was to stay at least one meter apart. Despite these rules, we were able to go to the bank, cell phone store to order Wifi and get Italian phone numbers for our phone, buy essentials for the appartment and get some food into the house. We accomplished a lot and enjoyed our first dinner at home.

That evening we enjoyed the wonderful views from our kitchen and “altana” as the sun set. Life was going to be good in Lucca, once we get through all these new rules!

Sunset, taken with my cell phone, #nofilters

Today (Wednesday, March 11th) we felt like pros at these new rules. We ventured outside of the walls to stop at an electronic store, similar to Best Buy, to buy a Nespresso machine. Then to a much larger supermarket. Because we must stay a meter apart, the stores limit the number of people inside. This creates queues outside of many stores and we waited 30 minutes to get into the large supermarket. We buy only what we can carry and Jim has carried a bunch the last 2 days!

Tonight we created a plan for tomorrow, but as we prepared to go to bed we learned of the next set of rules. Only food markets and pharmacies will be opened starting tomorrow. So we won’t be going to the bank or other “essential” errands that we planned, but will turn our focus on organizing our apartment and finish unpacking. And staying home.

We don’t regret coming to Italy. We have everything that we need. We feel safe and still healthy. We felt called to come to Italy and are still at peace with our decision.

Closer and Closer!

November 24, 2019 by JLF

We had a great trip to Italy from October 31^st to November 16^th. We spent a few days in Florence, mostly relaxing and just enjoying this beautiful city. We did one walking tour which was called “Renaissance Intro Tour”; great tour, but I’d characterized it as the advanced course, not an introduction! We’ve visited Florence several times now, so this was great to pull together the bits and pieces of info that we have learned.

The view of Florence at breakfast at the top of our hotel

Three pics taken at the Antinori Palazzo: the first two show how wagons were stacked with bottles of Chianti (hence the straw to protect the bottles). And a menu from our wine dinner.

Ponte Vecchio at night with beautiful reflection on the Arno river

We headed to Lucca on November 5^th, the day after Lucca Comic and Games ended. Try picturing hundreds of thousands of visitors dressed in fantastic costumes wandering through a medieval town… I’m looking forward to seeing it next year and taking lots of fun pictures.

We spent the majority of our time preparing for our move to Lucca. We saw 7 apartments, accompanied by realtors, lawyers, owners, and their colleagues. Jim sensed before the trip that I had my heart set on an apartment called “Il Pappagallo” and I simply spent the time comparing each apartment to it. So, we now have a lease for this wonderful apartment starting on February 1^st! Click on the link to read a description (in English) and check out the pictures. Yes, there will be room for visitors!

Besides the apartment, we got our Codice Fiscale (similar to the USA’s Social Security Number), opened a bank account, and got health insurance. We could not have accomplished this without the help of our lawyers and realtor. Even with that help, other ex-pats were surprised that we got it all done in about a week.

To get a sense of the bureaucracy in Italy, here’s a description of what it took to open a bank account. Our lawyers recommended a bank and we took their recommendation. On Monday, we were accompanied by a lawyer and an accountant and met face-to-face with a bank officer. The majority of the time was spent with the lawyer and the bank officer speaking in Italian. He then collected some information from us that he hand-wrote on a piece of paper. He seemed concerned that we didn’t have our Social Security cards with us. ☹ We were told to return the next day. The next day, we met our other lawyer, the same accountant and a different bank officer. Lots of talk in Italian as we just sat there. Then he started printing… about ½ inch of paper, small font, double sided. Then we started signing… We could have bought a house in America with this amount of paperwork! He gave us our ATM/debit cards and showed us how to use their online banking. He seemed surprised when we said that we wanted to deposit some cash – because they close at 1:20pm for a few hours and it was already 1pm. They got us into the teller line just in time. So, we have an Italian savings account and an ATM/debit card.

We now have tasks to do in America to prepare for the visa: renew our passport, get FBI background checks, and gather a bunch of paperwork. We’ll take documentation from all of this to the Italian Consulate in Miami… just as soon as we get our appointment. Unfortunately, the next available appointment is February 3^rd and it will take weeks to get the visa through the approval process. I will be checking their website daily for earlier appointments – and hoping and praying that we get one in December or January!

Description of Lucca

I’ve tried to describe Lucca to many people but have struggled to capture the essence of it. So here’s a description of Lucca that I found at http://www.lindquistguides.com/visit-lucca-2/ that does a good job:

“The walled city isn’t large. It takes twenty minutes to walk across it at a leisurely but steady pace. Don’t expect to maintain a steady pace, however, because although Lucca isn’t large, it is dense. It has been continuously inhabited for more than two thousand years; it was never abandoned and it was never destroyed. During most of its history Lucca thrived. It survived the Dark Ages intact and by the Early Middle Ages it was the capital of Tuscany. In the High Middle Ages it was the silk capital of Europe; its merchants and bankers preceded those of Florence and Siena. During the Renaissance Florence conquered the rest of Tuscany, but Lucca never fell. It did inevitably succumb to Napoleon but he prized the small republic sufficiently to bestow it upon his sister, Elisa, to rule as princess.

All of these periods survive today, in layers. When Lucca rebuilt it always built on what came before. No city better preserves its original Roman street layout. The medieval buildings were erected on Roman foundations and the Renaissance mansions assembled medieval houses and towers into grand edifices. Peel the plaster off a Renaissance building and you will usually find medieval brick underneath.”

During your visit, “try not to be overly ambitious. A visit to Lucca is often inserted into a hectic tour of must do’s and must see’s in more famous places, and Lucca is the perfect place to stop and catch your breath. Wander aimlessly a while, have a cappuccino, wander some more.”

We didn’t do a lot of sightseeing and I didn’t take any pictures at the bank 😉 but here are some random pictures that I took during this trip.

Two special bottles of wine enjoyed at our favorite restaurant. Jim’s loves geeking out with wine talk with the owner, Pasquale. The second pic shows the oldest bottle of wine that we’ve ever drank. It was delish – and still fresh!

We wandered outside Lucca’s walls to find this pasta shop with the best variety of pasta in town. We chose Tortelli di Castagne, with a filling of chestnuts. Yum!

I’m now in Northern Florida, hanging out with Derek until our visa comes through. I hope to spend the time enjoying the pristine parks (“The Real Florida”), time with my son, a bit of a refresh on his house, and printing tons of information for our visa application.

I hope that you have a great Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for, including having you follow along with me on this adventure!

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