(Written at the end of our first day in Italy)
Lush and green. Rivers and canals. Higher mountains than Chris expected. Lucca wasn’t a hill town. Landscape had a pleasing familiarity. Lucca looked like how Chris expected old European towns to look. Earth-toned buildings. A surprising amount of helpfulness from tourist info/bus info people and a gratifying amount of English made a new country seem less scary. A country that really appreciates food. A wealthier place than Andalucia—for centuries. Brick and cut stone buildings. Marble. Fantastic paintings.
To an American, so many things in Italy look familiar. The landscapes of Tuscany resemble those in paintings and movies. The food is comfortingly familiar. Whereas Spanish food was largely new to us, Italian food here resembles Italian food back home (only much, much better). Even the faces look familiar, what with so many Italian-American actors on TV. (A man on our train was a dead ringer for actor Tony Danza.) As a result, Italy feels both exotic and comfortingly accessible.
