So we were on our 'quiet', 'off-season', 'calm' little holiday in Italy, looking forward to a peaceful little foray into the beautiful old walled town of the region, Lucca, only to discover that a) Lucca was hosting a mammoth Comic and Fantasy convention, and was packed with geeky Italians (yes! Italy has geeks too! Poorly-dressed geeks no less!) outfitted in very tacky costumes, playing very loud heavy-metal music and doing odd activities like pretend jousting with wooden swords etc, all totally at odds with the beautiful old walled town atmosphere, and making it almost impossible to walk down the streets, I had never seen it so busy and b) the one and only place in Italy (we were told) that actually celebrates Halloween is Borge e Mozzano, and for two nights running was over-run with goths, again playing very bad, heavy metal music (OK, maybe I'm mixing my sub-cultures here, but the music certainly sounded bad and heavy metal as we listened to it from a distance in our cottage). So much for our peaceful get-away.
Still, we managed a fairly sane morning in Lucca by going early (inadvertently, even earlier than planned since we still hadn't changed our clocks) and enjoyed cycling round the old city walls. Then we beat a very fast retreat. I love Lucca, but without the costumed crowds, thanks.
Our final day trip was to the beautiful hill town of Barga, about 1/2 an hour up the valley from Borge. Another beautiful day, another beautiful town - this one a warren of warm colours, old, steep cobbled streets and hidden staircases. It was a national holiday in Italy - all saints again - that day, so I expected crowds, but the town felt very quiet and peaceful and we had a great lunch in a little sunny piazza.
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