Christmas Eve.

Carolers on stage in Piazale Maggiore. The second number was John Lennon's Merry Christmas (War is Over). The English in the choruses was strong, in the verses - eehhh - not so much.




Babbo Natale visits with children in the street, and has some small gifts from his bag. In Italy, apparently, he's seen more like a guru in a bathrobe than a retired linebacker.




Some last-minute shoppers in Via Fillungo. Like most any other night, much of this traffic is just part of the passeggiata.




Early evening just outside the walls near Porta San Pietro.

Here's Nancy in Lido. We're fortunate to have one Pizzeria/Bar right near us on the beach walk that has stayed open for the winter. They seemed happy enough to have us there for a late pizza last night -- we were the only ones in the place at 8:30 P.M.

Visits.

We've been in Lucca a couple of more times. It's about a 20-minute trip if we use the autostrada, which is, of course, a toll road (about 2 euros each way), but it saves us percolating up into the hills on narrow winding roads.

Lucca is a bit colder than down here by the ocean, so we need to layer up a bit when we go in. I've bought a padded vest to wear under my heavy jacket for added comfort, and Nancy was found some warmer gloves. And it's been lightly raining off and on for the past few days.

We've paid a short visit to Anna, one of my mother's first cousins who lives inside the city walls. She's been feeling poorly and rarely leaves her flat these days; fortunately she has a very devoted husband who cares for her.

Yesterday we had pranzo with cousin Luanna's family (she is another first cousin of my mother's) and got caught up with them. Between her and her daughter Isabella, much of the conversation goes to cooking, where Nancy's specialized vocabulary comes into play. Granddaughter Claudia (13), after she warms to the occasion, is always interested in showing me her latest efforts at computer illustration.

Later in the evening we met Gabriella and Pietro for a walk in Lucca, along Via Fillungo among the crowds of holiday shoppers. Although Lucca is not a huge town, it has many prosperous citizens, and the shopping district includes many fancy shops with the same designer names that will be found in Firenze or Milano. It is common to see tall, striking young women (and men) done up in high fashion.

The town where we are staying, Lido di Camaiore, is described on the English-language tourist site as "one of the most qualified Touristic Location of the Versilia." This is roughly correct. In the winter, however, almost all of the hotels are shuttered, and the marble-paved promenade lined with shops, bars and beach clubs is largely deserted, except for locals taking their late-afternoon passeggiata.

Connections.

By way of explanation: we are staying at the home of my cousin Roland's family, in their absence. They graciously offered its use while they are on their own holiday trip. We are also enjoying the use of his wife Vivienne's car (theoretically, we might use Roland's BMW, but perhaps have not the courage to brave Italian roads with it).

We also have the unusual facility of a broadband (ADSL) connection, which is still rare in Italian homes. We have hooked up our own laptop and operate like at home, except for the time difference and the fact that Google insists on displaying Google and Blogger in Italian-language versions.

The repairman came and got the riscaldamento functioning again, so we're back to normal.

A Day without Heat.

We woke up this morning late -- 10 A.M., the jet-lag still has us -- and soon realized that the heating system in the house had failed, along with the hot water source. The neighbor helped us try a few fixes, but eventually we had to make a date with the repairman.
He wouldn't make it until tomorrow morning, though, so we headed into Lucca for some shopping; cousin Gabriella joined us and we all went out for pizza afterwards.
It's turned quite cold,and we saw much hoar-frost in the mountain villages between here and Lucca. It's hovering around freezing by the early evening, and also damp, so we're struggling for the right clothes combinations that will make walking around outside comfortable. There may be additional fleece vest in the offing for me...

Lo Spietato ancora.

Our first full day went well. We made the drive back to the Pisa airport to recover Nancy's "lost" bag, which had apparently been held up by a TSA inspection in the U.S. The zipper lock was gone, but otherwise everything was intact.
After the pausa we made our way to the nearby village of Camaiore, a bit inland of our location, to do some errands: getting a new SIM card for our second Italian cell phone, which had expired; buying more credit for the first phone; getting some groceries and sundries.
By 6:30 p.m. we're ready for dinner, but our restaurant of choice "Lo Spietato" has yet to open and we go to kill time at a bar/pizzeria nearby. There we watch a parade of locals coming in for a refresher on the way home from work, and I try one of the Campari-based drinks that seem to be a favorite. The barman tells me that in his neighborhood the drink is called a "Spritz," but in Massa, they will call it something else. He gives me a giant plastic pen with the bar name imprinted on it as a parting gift.
Dinner at Lo Spietato is terrific, as usual; and as usual, we are the first to arrive at 7:30 and on our way just as the place is mobbed at 9:00.
We register the day a great success, especially linguistically, as we have negotiated the entire day and several involved transactions without resorting to English.

We're here.

We have arrived. It has been the usual profound distortion of space and time, and with the 5-hour layover in Dallas, about a 20-hour journey. Cousin Gabriella and her husband Pietro fetched us from the airport at Pisa and drove us to Lido di Camaiore, where we will be staying for the next few weeks. We went out for pizza at the only place along the beach promenade that we found open - how different it all looks in the winter!

Today's glitch: Nancy's checked bag didn't make the (rapid) transfer in London, and we are expecting to drive ourselves back to Pisa to pick up it up tomorrow.

The nice lady downstairs offered to pick up some groceries for us while she was out (in consideration of our jet lag) and returned a while later with milk, bread and prosciutto as well as a gift of a panettone in honor of our visit. Very sweet.

That's all I can manage for now, as my brain is fading out. 7:57 AM California time; 4:57 PM Lucca time.

Transition.

While we're waiting for our connecting flight here in Dallas,I thought I'd post this photo of my grandfather Carlo, who grew up in Lucca. It was taken in the early 1920's, about the time he left Italy for a new life in America. He followed his older brother Omero to Pittsburgh, where both got their start in the restaurant business.

He didn't visit Italy again until 1950, by which time his mother had died. By then he was a successful restaurateur in Santa Barbara, married and the father of 2 young daughters.