I’ve always wanted to jump out of a plane. Mom may have not approved, but it always had its place on the bucket list anyway. I knew people who’d paid $300 and $400 and done it out on Long Island. It wasn’t always this big, extravagant, planned thing as you’d expect skydiving to be. They just decided one day to drive out east, and they got in a plane and jumped out of it. No big deal. But it IS a big deal! If I was going to jump out of a plane I was going to do it right. It wouldn’t be some mundane activity for a summer day. It had to be a moment I’d remember forever. Long Island was home, sure, but what would the sights be? What would I see on my way down? Flat land? Water? A couple of north fork farms and vineyards maybe? What kind of view was that? The answer: not one exciting enough for my skydiving dreams.
Luckily I was headed to Florence, Italy to live and study for four months. I’d be just a few hours from Switzerland, one of the most popular skydiving locations. So that was the plan. Skydive in the Swiss Alps — there’s no better story to tell. So I saved and I budgeted and that was the plan. . .
Until I actually got to Italy and gelato got the best of me (every, single, night), and I realized that putting aside $500 to jump out of a plane and get a few photos of it was simply not realistic. And that was on top on traveling to Switzerland whether by plane or train. The funds weren’t there, and ultimately the time wasn’t either. I was in school during the week and wanted to spend as many weekends as possible exploring my home city of Firenze and other Italian cities, the big and the small.
So I did a little research. Skydiving in Tuscany. Tuscany was the place I’d call home for four months, why not fly above the beauty of my own new country? I found Skydive Lucca (Paracadutismo Lucca) through a few random internet searches, and though I definitely wanted to put my life into the hands of reputable professionals, I decided “this is the one” pretty immediately once I saw that they were licensed by the International Skydive Association. Lucca was on my list of Tuscan cities to visit so this was the perfect opportunity to cross two things off my list! I called my two friends who were living in Milan and wanted to join and we booked the “jump” right away for my best friend’s birthday weekend.
When the day finally came we didn’t have much of an idea of where we were going besides the address given to us over the phone. An hour and forty minutes on the regional train landed us just outside the historic walled city of Lucca. We caught a taxi and had fun communicating with our driver, who continuously had to correct us in our pronunciation of paracadutismo, the Italian word for skydiving. When we arrived, excited as ever, they told us that it didn’t seem like good flying weather but that we could take the pre-tandum jump class and then hang around to see if the sky cleared. We waited under the hangar anxiously for a few hours, pacing back and forth, entertaining ourselves with gymnastics on the mats lying around, running out from the overhang and performing sun dances, praying to Cautha the Etruscan sun god.
The impatience built up quite an appetite so we wandered over to the small restaurant bar next to the airport. [Note: the airport, Aeroporto Lucca-Tassignano, consists of solely a large, sectioned-off hangar holding a few different planes, housing the Paracadutismo Lucca classroom, and a tiny office. The bar is the only thing next to it, and they both are surrounded by beautiful fields of green]. The girls and I shared bags of chips to munch on, cautious of the potential chance to jump soon and nervous about the consequences of flying on a full stomach. We headed back to the airport quickly, eager to hear our skydiving fate. When we got back, it didn’t look good. They apologized and told us to try again tomorrow, though it would be extra busy as they’d have to try to fit jumpers from both Saturday and Sunday into just Sunday. Bummed as ever, we went back to the bar and the bartender called us a taxi. In the meantime, a couple started conversation with us asking about our travels and testing our Italian language skills. It was approaching closing time, so the bartender put the entire tray of biscotti out for us! We ate our feelings until it was time to head back to Florence. We kept telling ourselves that everything happens for a reason, it would’ve been unsafe to jump, we would have our time — we had to stay hopeful.
The next day was full of unknowns. We had no idea if the weather would permit. Would they even be able to fit us into the lineup? Luckily we were blessed with a sunny day, another gorgeous train ride into Lucca, and a friendly taxi driver like the last. We spent a few hours not knowing if we’d jump, anxiously awaiting word from the managers. To keep us entertained in the meantime, there was an amateur airshow taking place. We sat in plastic chairs soaking up the sun, watching jumpers fall from the clouds and the alternating schedule of tiny planes taking turns twisting through the sky.
And then it happened. A woman came up to us. “Ragazze, go get dressed.” We were going to jump! We literally jumped for joy on the way to our tandem instructors to suit up and go through the pre-jump drills. They assigned me to a professional jumper who spoke the least bit of English since I spoke the most Italian out of the three of us. His name was Francesco and boy was he a riot. He and the other guys were messing with us the whole way up in the sky. We even made up secret pre-jump handshakes. Each of us were also provided with a videographer since we had paid for tandem with photo + video. The videographer documented our prep drills, the whole way up in the plane, and of course the jump down, the free fall. What he didn’t document was the time I spent floating above rolling Tuscan hills, Francesco strapped to my back, pointing out the Ligurian Sea, Monti Pisani, and herds of sheep below us. It was absolutely glorious. Five to six minutes I will surely never forget.
I couldn’t have chosen a better place to skydive than at Paracadutismo Lucca. A group of girls I studied with had made the weekend trip to Interlaken, Switzerland and the weather permitted them from skydiving. I told them all of the amazing experience at Skydive Lucca and a few weeks later they were all able to get their incredible skydive experiences as well.
The company has improved their website since my last visit!
All in all I spent around 250 Euro for one of the best days of my life, with people I love, in a place that took my heart.
[Alaina Kiesel | Editorial Assistant Intern | North Carolina & New York, USA]
