Travel Day - Florence To Riomaggiore, Stop At Lucca May 13, 2023

It was time to leave Florence and start off to our volunteer venue - Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre region. We left Florence after breakfast. We traveled in two vans and since our drive was long we broke it up in a charming town called Lucca.

Lucca is located in the Tuscany region of Italy on the Serchio river. It’s salient feature is the beautiful and well-preserved Renaissance (16th and 17th century) walls built around the historic city center. The broad top of the wall is now a beautiful tree-lined path that locals can use for walking/running/biking. Lucca is also the birthplace of the great opera composer Puccini.

We had a local guide lead us on a tour of the town and our tour included a walk by his home which is now a museum.

After our tour we had lunch and then continued on our drive to Riomaggiore. The views along the way were amazing and we finally arrived in Riomaggiore about 4 pm in the evening.

After check in we had some time to just stroll around town before we met at the hotel reception area to be introduced to our host for the week Heydi in whose farmland we would be working. We then headed to our first dinner in Riomaggiore. After a delicious local dinner we walked to the harbor area for a beautiful view of the sun setting over the Ligurian sea. We then walked back to our hotel and called it a day all excited about the volunteer work for the next day.