Easter is on the doorstep and, I don't know about you, but when I think about Easter I think about Easter eggs!

As a child, I remember walking past my local pasticceria in awe as I admired giant handmade Easter eggs with colourful spring themed patterns! People have been giving their loved ones Easter eggs for hundreds of years as they are a symbol of birth, new beginnings and life. And with handmade eggs you can pick your surprise!

More expensive than usual supermarket eggs, these are crafted by expert chocolatiers able to blend unusual flavours into the chocolate as well as creating artistic works.

This year the Bompiani patisserie in Rome has made the headlines for creating "egg sculptures" inspired by great literary figures. But if this is too complex for your chocolate palate, Ernst Knam, a Milan based chocolatier, became famous for his chocolate handmade flamingoes and his original animal shaped eggs!

Shop around and you will see that there really is an egg for everyone!

Pictures below show eggs by Bompiani, Ernst Knam and Gallucci.

Many a legend surrounds the charming town of Lucca and its Medieval walls!

Lucida Mansi was renowned for her dazzling beauty, her amorous adventures and the tragic end she reserved for her lovers, who she disposed of by throwing them into a pit full of sharpened blades.

But it was her obsession with beauty that eventually got the better of her, she had to be constantly surrounded by mirrors so that the image of her beautiful looks was always in sight, everywhere she looked; on the walls, in her prayer book and even on the ceiling above her bed!

One day, as she was admiring her face, it was with great horror that she noticed her first wrinkle! It was with no hesitation that Lucida accepted the devil's offer: she would retain her beauty for another thirty years in return for la sua anima (her soul).

So the years went past seeing one lover to the next making their way into her bed and then being killed. When the pact with the devil was about to come to an end, she escaped in fear to Lucca's clock tower (la torre delle ore) to try and stop the clock before it struck mezzanotte (midnight). But as she was climbing the steps, she was stopped by the devil who dragged her into his carriage in flames, then drove across the city and along the city walls before falling into a small lake. This can still be found today in l'Orto Botanico (the Botanic Gardens).

It is said that the devil's fiery carriage can still be seen on certain nights and that if you are brave enough to immerse your head in Lucca's Laghetto (small lake), you can see Lucida's desperate face looking up from the muddy bottom.