Lucca - Classic Bike Heaven!

Been away for a week... not great timing with all the Manx GP preparations and bike building still to so... but it was booked and paid for months ago.

Visited the town of Lucca in Tuscany where my Grandmother is from. An olde worlde merchant and banking town. No traffic in the town centre except for bicycles. All the locals pedal around on these brilliant bikes. Helena and I hired some bikes and I got some snaps:

I loved the old rust covered ones...

Gotta have a basket for that shopping...

They even had a bicycle shrine!

Couldn't resist this Piaggio.

The streets are littered with these old-time pedalers...

Poli was one of the marques favoured by the locals...

I was admiring this old Raleigh when the owner appeared. We exchanged words and I managed to sign 'cool bike' to the guy. He goes across the street, unlocks a door and ushers me in. It's dark and dingy. He starts whispering and ushers me to the back of a large room with a huge marble table in the middle of it, asking me to mind the cute littel puppy dog on the way. It smelled pretty funky in there. He shows me two more way cool classic bikes in teh next room that he's quite proud of. They were cool.

My eyes adjust to the darkness and I leave through the large room again... only then could I see that the walls were lined with shelves. On the shelves were coffins! There must have been at least a dozen of them. Differnet woods and furnishings. Outside again I bid my classic bike appreciator farewell and see the sign above the door. White lettering on black with crosses and coffins. The undertaker.

And I thought the funky smell in there was the puppy-poo!

Tabacchi - the place where you buy stamps in Italy.

A swanky afair this one - gleaming cream paintwork, matching leather seat and paniers.

Lucca - it was a very cool place just to just pedal around, drink coffee and eat great Tuscan food for a few days!