The owner does sliced Tuscan meats and cheeses as well as vegetable soufflés and assorted other snacks to accompany a glass or two if you just feel like tasting a few different wines.

Address and contact info:
di Vinae
via S.Andrea, 14
55100 Lucca
(tel) 0583 080743

I ate there this past May for a tasting with a caterer that the owner collaborates with, so I have to say that I ate off the menu, but the experience was memorable. Every dish was unique and extremely well prepared. The owner, Massimo, is a sommelier, so the wines he paired with our different courses were perfect.

What I really liked about this restaurant is that they dare to reinvent Lucchese cuisine instead of just sticking to the typical dishes you can get at every restaurant in town. For example, a dish that you will find on every restaurant menu here in Lucca is "Tortelli al Ragù". Typically, this would be a ravioli sized pasta stuffed with chopped meat that is lightly seasoned with clove in a read meat sauce. The chef at Cantine has completely turned this dish around and instead offers it as fresh pasta stuffed with potatoes and sausage and tossed with slivers of truffles! Talk about raising the bar. Bravo to you chef Daniele!

If you like to eat creative dishes that you can't necessarily reproduce at home, then I think Cantine Bernardini is well worth a visit. The menu changes with the season. Here are a few examples of some of the dishes they are offering on the menu this season:

Opening Hours:
Lunch: 12:30 to 14:30
Dinner: 19:30 to 22:00
Closed: Mondays for lunch and all day Sunday

Contact Info:
Cantine Bernardini Via Suffragio, 7
Tel: 0583 494 336
website: www.cantinebernardini.com
email: info@cantinebernardini.com

Walking Directions: Walk to Piazza Bernardini. Just opposite the parking lot is Palazzo Bernardini. The restaurant is located on the back entrance to the Palazzo, basement level, so you'll have to walk behind the Palazzo and then look for a green door with a bird on it. There are a few tables outside.

The guided 3 hour tour costs 25 euro per person and includes the cost of the rental of a mountain bike and related gear (helmet, repair kit), a guide and a technical assistent. An average of 30 kilometers, some a bit hilly, will be covered in the 3 hours, so best to be somewhat fit and comfortable on a bike if you'd like to give it a try.

Here are the two proposed itineraries with relative departure times:

Discovering Lucca

A trip following the ancient roman acqueduct meandering through such scenic areas as Coselli, Vicopelago, Meati- and the river Serchio.

Departure: 9:30 a.m. : guided by the Club Ippico Lucchese, or departing at 9:45 a.m. with Tuscany Ride a Bike
Days: Monday- Wednesday- Friday (June to September)
Price: €25
Distance to cover: 30 km, approximately 3 hours
Route: Club Ippico Lucchese - Lucca - Acquedotto del Nottolini - Coselli - Vicopelago - Meati - Serchio - Club Ippico Lucchese – Lucca

Villas and villages

A tour that explores some of the great historic villas just North of Lucca.

Departure: 9:30 a.m. : guided by the Club Ippico Lucchese, or departing at 9:45 a.m. with Tuscany Ride a Bike
Days: Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday
Cost: €25
Distance to cover: 30 km, approximately 3 hours

For further information and reservations you can contact either of the two addresses below:

Itinera
Vecchia Porta San Donato - Piazzale Verdi, Lucca
tel. +39 0583/583150

Tuscany Ride a Bike
Via Corte Pietri, 1 - 55100 Lucca
Tel. +39 0583/080588
www.tuscanbike.it

Ingredients:

• 2 400 gram cans of borlotti beans
• 1 400 gram can cannellini beans
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 pepperoncino dried and split
• 1 vegetable bouillon
• dried rosemary a pinch
• 1 liter boiling water
• 200 grams dried or fresh strip maccheroni (cenci)
• 1 400 gram can of chopped tomatoes

Boil water for pasta, add a pinch of salt and then add the maccheroni strips.
In a separate deep pot sauté the pepperoncino and the vegetable bouillon in the olive oil for a minute on medium heat until the bouillon dissolves.
Add the rosemary and the beans in their own liquid. Let bubble.
Reduce heat and insert hand mixer. Mix until mixture is pureed. Add canned tomatoes.
Add the pasta strips and some cooking liquid from the pasta until the mixture thins out enough to be soupy and light.
Serve drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.

This recipe has a million variations. One I particularly like is to use is with ceci beans instead of the barlottti and cannellini beans. It comes out a lot creamier. If you use the ceci, only add about half a can of the chopped tomatoes. Also, in the ceci version, I would add one clove at the beginning with a clove of garlic. Make sure to fish the clove out before you are ready to purée.

Tuscan Kale Risotto in a Gorgonzola and walnut sauce

Ingredients:

• 500 grams Tuscan Kale also known as Lacinato Kale
• ½ cup vegetable broth, not too salty
• 1 vegetable bouillon
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 500 grams Arborio rice ( I normally use brown rice to be healthy, but the Arborio tastes better)
• ½ cup low fat cooking cream
• 100 grams gorgonzola cheese (if you like this cheese, use more to make a sharper sauce)
• hand full of walnuts
• salt and pepper to taste

Start by washing the kale and removing the stems. Then, with a scissors, cut it into inch long pieces and put it in a deep pot to boil down with the vegetable broth on low heat, cover.
When the kale is nice and soft, transfer about a third of it to a blender and blend. Then slowly add the rest of the mixture, bit by bit, adding and blending until the entire lot is blended into a puree.
In another pot add the olive oil and the vegetable bouillon to low heat and let the olive oil melt the bouillon.
Add the rice and sauté it for about a minute. Then add hot water slowly, a cup at a time, letting the rice absorb the water little by little, and cook the rice and bouillon mixture.
When there is still a little water left in the rice and the rice is almost cooked through, add the puree of kale to the rice and stir over low heat.
As the mixture gets drier, slowly add in the low fat cooking cream. If you are using the Arborio rice, you may even skip the cream if you like, as long as the rice has a creamy consistency. I add it in when I use the brown rice as it does not get as creamy as the Arborio. You may not need to add the whole half cup. I usually go easy on the cream as I'm going to add the gorgonzola sauce on top and don't want the dish to feel too heavy. Add just enough to make the consistency creamy without feeling heavy.
Once you have that slightly gooey risotto consistency, turn off flame.
In a saucepan over very low heat, add two or three tablespoons of the left over low fat cooking cream and 100 or so grams of gorgonzola cheese. The amount of gorgonzola depends on how sharp you want the sauce to turn out. I normally start out by adding in a slice that is as long and wide as my index finger, then I slowly add more as I taste. Always stir as this can easily get overcooked. To finish chop up the walnuts finely and add to the sauce.
Spoon some risotto in a dish and drizzle it with the gorgonzola sauce.
Season to taste with fresh cracked black pepper and salt.

Note: you can do the same dish in the Spring substituting the kale for fresh nettles (ortica in Italian) and it tastes delicious.

If you are holding your wedding ceremony or reception inside the historic center of Lucca, you have probably already asked yourself about the parking situation. As most know, this part of Lucca is mostly only open to resident traffic, with just a few areas around the periphery that allow non-residents to enter and park. Here are a few hints to help you and your guests navigate the sometimes confusing world of parking in Lucca:

• There is no free non-resident parking inside the walls. Always assume that once in the walls, you must pay at the parking meter usually located within 100 meters of where you've parked. Get a ticket from the meter and place it inside your car, on the dashboard.
• Paid parking is indicated by blue lines. Do not park your car in the yellow lines, these spaces are reserved for residents.
• Lucca is divided up into zone A and B for traffic. Unless you are driving to your hotel to drop-off/ pick-up bags, do not enter either zone with your car. There will be a sign with a red circle and the words “zona pedonale”, when you see this sign, do not enter the street that is beyond it.
• Parking lots with a large capacity inside the walls are: Mazzini, Lorenzini, Cittadella and Piazza Santa Maria.
• To those who have made previous trips to Lucca, the lot in Piazza San Francesco has recently been reduced to just side street parking, so your chances of finding a spot are much lower now.
• If you park outside of the historical center by the walls, make sure you park in a marked space and not on the grass, or you run a good chance of getting a ticket.
• If you are unlucky enough to get a parking ticket, you can go to the post office on the intersection of via Valisisneri and via delle Trombe with the ticket and pay it there. See the letter icon on the map indicating where to find the largest post office inside the city.
• If you are really unlucky and they tow your car away, pretty rare but it can happen, then you'll need to call the municipal police (polizia municipale) at tel. 0583 44 2727. They'll tell you where to find your car or come and unblock it, if that is all that is necessary. You must pay the fine in full and have proof of payment before they will release your car back to you.

As usual the best part was just to wander around town, especially between Piazza Grande and the Walls, and just admire the costumes.

We did buy tickets though, which allowed us to go into the various white tents set up accross the town, so we could spend more money on comics, of course, nearly all in Italian, and a huge array of comics or anime related gadgets. Our son's bounty included a Pokemon T-Shirt, Shadow Sonic and Brock figurines and some Pokemon cards (I'll let you guess what his favourite cartoon is).

The best way to get the tickets while bypassing the enormous lines is to buy then on the previous day, after 5:30pm at the tickets offices in town or near the station. Multi day passes are also available, but you don't save much money with them, and you still have to queue, although not for too long, on the day you are using them in order to activate them.

The weather was beautiful, which was good for some of the most lightly dresses characters (as Edvarg Endel above left, who was wearing only a tiny pareo).

More links, more photos:Flickr Group