Every night fireflies are flickering in the dark. They are like pretty little fairy lights in the garden. Our friend Jim caught one and we had a close up look.
As you can see they are really tiny. The light comes from under the rear end. We let our firefly go and he took off and was soon shining his light once again in the garden.
The lovely Italian word for firefly is la lucciola…such a pretty little thing deserves a delightful name.
My friend Paolo told me that when he was young the children in his village used to catch fireflies because they believed they could turn into coins overnight. They would keep them in an upside down glass and in the morning there would be coins under the glass.
There was even a little poem about them.
Lucciola, lucciola vien da me
Che ti do il pan del Re,
Pan del Re e della Regina,
Lucciola, lucciola vien vicina.
Of course, he now realises that his mother put the coins there but he admits to spending many hours wondering how it was possible for such a tiny insect to produce money.
Bella Bagni di Lucca 
So that’s how it looks!
My daughter just caught one of them tonight in Wisconsin. 🙂 I agree, they’re delightful!
How lovely that they are so widespread.
Wonderful creatures! Baroque painter Caravaggio used the powder of dead fireflies mixed with other chemical agents on his canvasses to “fix” the image, in a technique that could only be described as early photography.
Amazing!
Every year I look forward to an evening on the patio, glass of wine in hand, listening to soft music and admiring the fireflys. Managed it a week or two ago on a rare warm evening nr Colle.
We are having lovely warm evenings now in BdL.
When my nieces first saw one they thought it was Tinkerbell from Peter Pan. Last night we had thousands under the trees in the garden.
I can see how they could easily be mistaken for Tinkerbell.
Thank you dear Debra, I haven’t seen her before, and I loved the name too… “la lucciola”
Have a nice weekend, love, nia
This is the first time I have seen one up close.
Reblogged this on photographyofnia.
What a lovely post! I remember chasing fireflies to make lanterns out of paper cups when I was a child, and then letting them go. So magical!
They would make great paper lanterns.
Oh, they did make lovely lanterns, and they still light up a memory and a smile. Thanks for taking me to that place!
I have just found fireflies as an adult. I can imagine how magical they would be for a child.
My family and I spent the last few weeks in my mother and father town bagni di Lucca it was wonderful the kids loved it we bought an apartment in bagni di lucca we spent time with family.there is so much to do there.its like the center of a lot of beautiful towns and cities 30 minutes from Lucca 45 minutes from pisa 1 hr from Florence and 1 hr from beach.and the list goes on cio Bella Italia.
NIce to know that fireflies are in Italy! We call them “lightening bugs” here in western Pennsylvania. They have been creating fireworks in my garden every evening for the past week – a wonderful sight!
It is a delightful sight in the garden at night.
Not all of Italy has them because the wild boar love to eat the grubs that the fireflies develop from. We would have only one or two when we lived up in the hills, but now down here in the valley I am seeing many more. And no traces of wild boar. Martha
We have wild boar in the area, but they have left some grubs.
We used to rent a house in San Cassiano, and the field next to the house was alive with fireflies end of May beginning of June; so much so that we used to switch off the lights in the living room and open the windows to look at the fireflies. For some reason I used to think they were only around towards end of May beginning of June but i’ve spotted them (en masse) in August.
I don’t know whether thats normal for fireflies or not?
I don’t know what is normal, but I am happy they are here.
I have only see the fire flies at night .. beautiful – amazing to watch … beauty can sometime be very colorless.
They are such tiny little things and create such a lovely light in the garden.
Yes, it’s truly magical to watch them … only seen them in French Polynesia
What a delightful story
It is a bit like the tooth fairy.
Lucciola, lucciola vien da me Che ti do il pan del Re, Pan del Re e della Regina, Lucciola, lucciola vien vicina.
We were there in June we had seen plenty of lighting bugs all over Italy bagni do Lucca is our vacation spot we are minutes away from Pisa,Lucca,beach,Florence,its the best place to live people there are so nice and helpful.we bought an apartment in bagni we love it so much it is my mother and fathers hometown.
Where is your apartment? We have one on the bridge in Ponte a Serraglio?