1812 Weekend in Italy - Part 1

I am slowly but surely catching up on my posting!! At the beginning of June I spent a wonderful weekend in Italy at an 1812 event that was held in the town of Lucca in Tuscany. It was organised by the Jane Austen Society of Florence and a dance group (whose name I have completely forgotten!!), anyway Margarita Martinez and her cousin Donald pretty much organised it all, and a very good job they did indeed.

I flew to Pisa and then took a bus to Lucca

View of the river in Pisa (I think it is the Arno), from the bus window.

Margarita got most of the guests a great deal on a B&B, which just happened to be a beautiful old palazzo. :) I wasn't able to get a photo of the outside as the streets surronding the palazzo were too narrow for me to be able to get a good view of the building. However, I did manage to take a few of the interior...

My bedroom ceiling!!! :)

Bedroom

Me bed :)

The bathroom door!!!!

The wardrobe door!

View from bedroom window

another view

Piazza San Michele. The hotel was just down a side street from here.

On the first night we had a dance practice in  the Palazzo Ducale. We were initially going to have the ball there but they had to change the venue as the day of the ball was a national holiday and the palazzo was being used for official celebrations. 

Walking up to the room where the dance practice was being held

The rooms in the palazzo had some of the most beautiful ceilings

Looking at the beautiful frescos on the walls of one of the rooms. Unfortunately the chairs, laid out in readiness for the national celebrations the following day, weren't quite period correct!!

another lovely room with ugly chairs

another gorgeous ceiling

Beautiful fireplace

close-up of the very pretty tiles 

The ball dance rehersal - I think the room we danced in was some sort of Long Gallery. The floor was tiled so it wasn't perfect for dancing but it was beautiful!!!

...as you can see from some of the wall decoration

 Aurora, taking a breath of fresh air between dances - it was very hot in the room!!

Gorgeous staircase - looking down from the top

Beautiful barrel vaulted ceiling

Part Two: The first full 1812 day.