Writing Under the Tuscan Sun

At the beginning of May, with two writing friends, I spent a week in the ancient walled city of Lucca. We rented a lovely apartment in the heart of the city, which was above a patisserie and the smells as the delicious cakes were prepared were wonderful. As were the cakes!

We all worked hard on our writing and enjoyed several afternoons outside, making the most of the sunshine. We wrote in lots of different places, from the Botanical Gardens, to picnic benches on the Renaissance walls of the city. But the favourite place for me was Palazzo Pfanner and the wonderful gardens full of lemon trees.

It’s also where we spent the afternoon with Sharon Kendrick, who was in Italy teaching at the wonderful Watermill and visited Lucca when the group had their day out.

It was a fun to immerse ourselves in the daily life of the city, everything from shopping for food to enjoying a coffee and watching the world go by. Several times during the week, I walked around the city on the walls, a walk of 4km, but well worth it to see the city. It's also what all the locals do. Each morning they walk, run or even cycle around the walls. 

As well as writing, I visited museums, churches and the cathedral. I spent many hours enjoying window shopping on the Via Fillungo and soon found my way around by remembering all the shops where I liked a dress or a pair of shoes. When the bustle of shopping became too much, I enjoyed coffee in the famous oval Piazza Anfiteatro.

From the apartment I could watch the daily life of Lucca going on and soak up the atmosphere. I loved listening to the sounds of the cafes, the flow of Italian and the gorgeous smells from the patisserie below.

Soon, our week came to an end and I was sad to say goodbye to our lovely apartment and it's charming courtyard view, but I returned with lots of words written, fabulous food eaten and lovely places seen.

A Week of Writing in Tuscany

It's hard to believe that this time last week I was in Pisa, about to join a fabulous group of women for a course on writing romantic fiction with Sharon Kendrick. The group consisted of two ladies from New Zealand who were just starting a tour of Europe, one from South Africa who currently lives in Madrid, one from Lithuania who is now living in the UK, one from Canada, and five of us from the UK. We we all brought together by a desire to write romance and we had a brilliant time.

Before joining the group I spent a day in Pisa, a city that captured my imagination when I was very small. I have always dreamed of visiting it and going up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. These photos show it from the plane and the view of the old city wall from the top of the tower.

I also visited the Cathedral and the Baptistery, both magnificent,
but the detail inside the Cathedral is amazing.

The streets of Pisa are full of stalls selling all kinds of souvenir gifts, from models of the tower, t-shirts and hats, to leather handbags. Everywhere you go in the streets around the tower, people are possing for photographs that look as if they are holding up the tower.

On Saturday, we all met at the airport and were taken to The Watermill, Posara. A truly wonderfully quiet place to spend a week. The weather was a bit wet, but we didn't let it dampen our enthusiasm to have fun getting to know one another and enjoying the first of many delicious meals.

Each morning at seven the church bells would ring, and then again each hour. This is the church of Posara and a view of the main street through the village. It's just so peaceful and quiet.

The group soon got down to the serious matter of writing, as we worked through plotting a book with Sharon. First deciding together who the hero and heroine were and getting to know them as well as possible before working our way bit by bit through their story. As we did this we uncovered all sorts of pitfalls and problems, which should help us in our own writing.

On Wednesday, we all had a day off from writing and travelled by
train through magnificent countryside to Lucca. There we all had lunch then set off to explore and shop. This photo is a view of Lucca from the Torre Guinigi and then the tower from the street. It is famous for having a tree growing on the top!

This is Sharon and I in the Piazza Antifteatro, a vast oval piazza, where we enjoyed a coffee.

On the last day we went to a wonderful restaurant surrounded by mountains, this photo shows the clouds around them, but the sun soon broke through.

It was a wonderful holiday, so good I've booked to go again!

More information at http://www.watermill.net/