My Day Under the Tuscan Sun

I vividly remember running on a treadmill in a Holiday Inn gym somewhere in Texas while the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun” played on television.  I remember being in love with the scenery- the red roofs, the old villas, the Italians.  I also remember thinking “If only.”  If only I could buy a villa in Tuscany.  If only I could ever go to Europe let alone Tuscany.  I could have never imagined that I would be here three years later.  I still haven’t bought a villa, but I’ve learned that anything is possible.

My first day under the Tuscan sun was spent in Livorno.  I was told there wasn’t much in Livorno so I decided to sleep in that day and go out for lunch whenever I got up.  The ship docks in a very industrial area so I paid the two euros to take a bus to the center of town.  I knew I wasn’t going to have time for lunch before I even got off the bus.  As soon as I saw the red roofs and the boat lined canals I knew I had a day of exploring ahead of me.

There were lots of apartment buildings or multifamily homes in Livorno.  I was there on a sunny day and everyone had hung their laundry out to dry.  Now, where I come from we have a clothesline in the backyard and I have seen movies where the lines run in between neighboring buildings.  However I have never seen it how they do it in Tuscany.  Here your clothesline is right below your window...even if you live several floors up.  It’s flat against your house and I presume you just lean out your window and hang things up.  In some cases this is over the sidewalk.  In some cases this is over the canal.  What happens if you drop a sock?  Best cast scenario you have to run down six stories (or however many), go outside, and get your sock back.  Worse case, you’ve just dropped it into a canal and it’s now gone forever.  Think about it.  How many times have you dropped something while hanging clothes on the line in your backyard?  I always just pick it up and give it a good shake and trust that it’s still “clean enough.”  But what if you dropped on a street, in an alley, or again, into the canal?

I was also amazed at the amount of boats.  I don’t know what they all do with them- fish I presume.  There was a small canal system that meandered through the old town and each leg of the canal was lined with boats- big boats, little boats, speed boats, row boats.  It seemed like everyone in town must have a boat.  Well everyone except for the owner of the one in this picture.  He had a boat. He now has a manmade reef.

One of the canals is no longer in use and is shut off from local traffic.  Instead of putting a common road block, er waterway block in this case, they got creative with it.  They installed a life size foosball table!  It wasn’t a functional foosball table.  Trust me, I checked.

The rest of my day was spent wandering the streets trying to soak it all in.

I’ve been having more adventures than time to write about them, but there are lots more stories to come.  I’ve been to all of our ports for the next month at least once now so I’ll start to do some deeper exploring.  I’ll write more when I can!