Montecatini Trip - 4 - Puccini's house

Tuesday 28th June 2005 - Puccini's house

Up a little later, then off to Puccini's house. Firstly, it was quite difficult to find the motorway. Then, the ticket machine played up. Then, there were roadworks making a jam but it was still clearly the fastest way to get to Lucca. This cost E3.60 toll but the motorway from there to Viareggio was free, although not so marked on the map. Viareggio was full of Spanish Victorian hotels looking like giant cakes but actually, from the 1920's. One cannot see much of the sea, as the beaches are privatised & the cafés of the concessionaries block the view. We turned inland to Torre de Lago Puccini. There were several miles of grot before the lake, which has free parking & is very pretty. So is his house. We petitioned at the locked gate with another English couple to be let in & were by a very bad-tempered guide, who had already started a tour & made us miss the first bit. However, she only guarded us while we listened to a very good, if ill-pronounced, commentary on those tape things. The house was stuffed with memorabilia, including himself, buried in a room converted to a chapel. When the walkie-talky eventually told us the tale of how the collection had been neglected for twenty-odd years up to 1995 because of a legal dispute & how the collection is self-financing & run by a supporter's club, one could understand the attitude of the guard a little better.

We drove South to Pisa & along the Arno to Marina di Pisa, then down to Livorno. This coast has the same problem as Viareggio, although at first, we did see some sea. From Livorno, there is an old, free, motorway all the way back to Fucecchio & then, to Montecatini & into the pool. I chatted to a German couple. He was a retired Labour Exchange Manager from Hanover & she, about the same age but in better nick, was quite dishy. I had an escalope for dinner & Avis, a peculiar thing that may have been a turkey paté & looked like BSE brains. The rural oiks tended to dominate the bar in the evening. I have been well bitten, mostly I think, outside the bar in the garden.