Day 4 - Livorno and Pisa - August 7th

Today started out fairly frustrating, but turned into a great day.  Most of the time when Shawn and I cruise we will fly by the seat of our pants.  We rarely make plans ahead of time and simply see what kind of trouble finds us when we leave the ship.  We’ve had some pretty cool adventures, and have even found spots at different locations that we return to year after year that we consider ‘our spots’ that are not populated by people from the ship, and that are mainly known to locals.  

Pisa was different! 

I wanted to get an early start like I normally do, but Shawn wanted to take things easy.  Working as hard as he works during the week, he tries to sleep in most weekends, and vacation is no different.  So he slept in until around 9am.  We got up, got ready and headed off the ship with no plans other than we wanted to stop by the leaning tower of Pisa.  

We figured we could take a taxi or figure out public transportation, but we were a little wrong.  Some of the ports that we’ve stopped at make it virtually impossible to simply hop off the boat and have trouble find us.  At a number of the stops you aren’t able to walk off the pier, rather, you need to be with a group, a bus tour of some sort, or gather into a group of people and have a taxi take you to where you want to go.  Easy enough, but with the two of us traveling without a group it has been virtually impossible to do that.  Livorno was no different.

After exiting the ship we were confronted with a few options:  1). Rent a car – Shawn has made it abundantly clear that he does not want to rent a car in another country until we can get an international license.  2). Grab a taxi, but with just the two of us this was impossible.  Not the kind of impossible that is metaphorical, no.  It was literally impossible since we didn’t have a group of 8 people, so that was out.  3). Hop on a last minute bus that took us to Pisa to see the leaning tower which cost around twenty five Euros per person.  We chose option number 3, but only after me freaking out because we didn’t get an earlier start to the day to possible join a group.  So with tears in my eyes and frustration in my heart, off we went to Pisa.  

Thankfully this bus trip worked out because booking a bus with the cruise line cost around $80 dollars a person.  Had we paid that, we would have been pretty pissed off, so all worked out ok in the end with getting to Pisa.

Once in Pisa we followed the walking trail about a mile in order to get to the area where the leaning tower was.  It’s a great park area where three buildings exist, and the historical and engineering aspects were pretty interesting.  But the thing is, they are just buildings.  I imagine it’s the same experience going to the Eifel Tower – it’s just a tower.  Thankfully both Shawn and I had proper expectations and were not disappointed.  In fact, we went to the leaning tower because we felt like it was a requisite stop.  We can’t go to Pisa without seeing the leaning tower, so that’s what we did.

After looking around at the buildings for about 45 minutes, we headed into town – the long way.  I wanted to see what the town looked like, and pass by some shops, so that’s what we did.  We headed to one of the Piazza’s in town to see ‘what’s what’.  On our way to the Piazza we stopped by a little café and had a cappuccino and just sat there for a while enjoying our surroundings.  Shawn had a coke, of course, since he doesn’t drink coffee.

After our respite at the coffee shop we then headed to the Piazza, passed a church with mass in service, and simply walked some back alleys of Pisa.  It was pretty cool with the cobble stone streets, restaurants, a bakery here and there, and coffee shops scattered throughout our walk.  We ended up at a local little restaurant and had some lunch.  We both ordered the menu of the day which came with an appetizer, pasta dish and coffee.  I had a plate of prosciutto and mozzarella, and Shawn had mozzarella and tomatoes.  We shared, of course.  Those were more than enough for lunch, but there was still the pasta course.  I had pesto and Shawn had the bolognese.  Both were amazing, and pasta was cooked perfectly aldente!   

My preferred way to eat pasta is aldente at home, but Shawn says it’s undercooked.  After our visit to the little restaurant, I felt vindicated.  It was perfectly cooked – chewy but soft.

While we were at the restaurant we noticed the chef come out to talk to some of the locals.  A little old couple who had to be in their 70’s came in to have lunch.   The older gentleman reminded me of my grandfather:  shorter, a little stout, and had on a white tank top with a button down shirt over it with the top maybe 4-5 buttons undone.  It made my heart happy to remember him while on vacation.  So a HUGE thank you to that older gentleman for coming in for lunch at the exact time we were there.  You took me down memory lane where I was least expecting it.

After lunch we hightailed it back to the bus with merely 2 minutes to spare and headed back to the ship.  For a merely 4 hour experience, this stop was well worth it.

Day 3 - Boarding the Boat - August 6

(pics to be added when we get home)

This was my favorite morning, and one that made me want to stay for a much longer period of time, in Rome.

We woke up fairly early because we had to make our way back to the airport.  I booked transfers from the airport to the cruise ship because it was an hour and a half drive, and this was just about the cheapest way to get there.  But before we did that I wanted to wake up and have some coffee at a café, and have a nice little pastry.

We got up and dressed pretty quickly and were on our way.  I previously looked up a location close to the hotel we could walk to, and that’s just what we did.  We mapped our way to a cute little café that turned out to be a chain.  They had great coffee and wonderful pastries.  Shawn had two mini cannoli, and I had a chocolate croissant.  

After our brief café visit, we stumbled upon a fruit market and purchased some fresh fruit – a peace for me, and a nectarine for Shawn.  Then we meandered a bit around a couple of the streets where people were selling shoes, and some clothes, then made our way back to the hotel to gather our belongings.

We packed fairly quickly, grabbed a taxi and headed to the airport, but not before almost forgetting to empty the hotel safe containing about $700 American dollars.  Thankfully I remembered just as we were walking out the door of the hotel and grabbed it before officially checking out.

We caught the taxi to the airport, and almost immediately got onto our bus to transfer to the ship.

Coming on the ship was a pretty cool experience.  Shawn and I are not novices when cruising.  I think this is cruise number twelve or fifteen for us – we’ve lost count.  But this ship is amazing.  It’s HUGE!  Like SUPER huge.  The central area of the ship is about 3 stories high and is magnificent.  This ship also has a dancing fountain water feature on the main deck at the top, and has bars all over the place.  The other difference of this ship is that it has a massive buffet.  It has three or four aisles of food to choose from, and with over 3,000 people aboard, I can see why that is needed.  

The cruise line gave us the perk of an all-inclusive drink package, which means that all bottles of water, cans of coke and ALL ALCOHOL are included the first week we are on board the ship.  My comment to Shawn last night after my forth glass of wine was “oh, this could be dangerous”.  We’ll see.  I usually don’t drink back to back days at home – my body can’t handle it with all the walking I usually do, but we’ll see how this cruise pans out…..

In the evening we made our way to the back of the boat where there’s a bar and met some pretty cool people from Utah and Australia.  We chatted with them for a couple of hours (thus the multiple glasses of wine), then had dinner.  

The plan for tomorrow is to go see the leaning tower of Pisa, but the kicker is that we have no plans of how to get there.  We have a fun saying these days that is holding pretty true:  “fun adventures with Carol”.  It means Carol has no plans and we just pretty much see where the day or experience takes us.

So tomorrow our plan is “fun adventures with Carol” time.  I’ll keep you posted…..

Day 2 - Rome in a day..... - August 5th

(pics to come after we return home)

Rome in a day……

Buongiorno! 

We woke up pretty early our first day in Rome.  Actually, it was our only full day in Rome, so we wanted to pack as much in as possible.  We had tickets to the Vatican Museums for 12:30pm, and wanted to see pretty much everything before that, and Shawn made that happen.  

We started out by catching the shuttle from the Waldorf Astoria to town.  We then walked by a café close to a university and had cappuccino – one of the best cappuccino’s I’ve ever had.  After my very quick morning pick me up, I was ready for the day.  We walked from the café to the Spanish steps, which were closed, but we took pictures anyway.  They were doing some restoration of the steps by filling in micro cracks and small chunks that had fallen away over the course of time.

We then headed to the Coliseum, and on the way we stopped by Trevi Fountain.  That was pretty cool.  But again, they were doing some light ‘housekeeping’ by sweeping up the massive amount of money in the fountain.  We hung out for a bit before heading onto the Coliseum.  

Holy crap!  There TONS of people there.  From what we learned later, it’s not normally that busy there.  We just happen to come to Rome on a very busy day.  The Coliseum was pretty awesome – large, old, crumbling – everything you’ve ever watched on the Discovery Channel.  

From the Coliseum we went towards Palantine Hill near the Forum.  As an aside, we had eaten no food, only coffee for me, and it was about 984% humidity and approximately 85 degrees.  We were walking pretty quickly to get everything done in a decent amount of time, and by the time we got to the hill, we were pretty spent.  Both of us were dripping sweat and chugging water, but it wasn’t nearly enough.  Trying to recover from the time change, and walking over 7 miles while in Rome, we thought we were pretty close to death while climbing a decent hill – with no breeze – dripping sweat – with no food.  Get the picture here?  It was damn near miserable – except we were in Italy, y’all.  That was the only redeeming factor.  Well, that and the historical aspect of it all.

Moving on……  After we trudged down Palantine Hill hear the Forum, we walked to the Pantheon.  This was a pretty cool experience.  Not temperature cool of course, but an awesome experience to be able to sit in the Pantheon and reflect for a little while.

From there we walked to Vatican City where we were directed to walk around the outer wall and to the museum entrance.  We had wisely pre-purchased tickets, otherwise we would have stood in a que for nearly two hours.  We should the gorgeous Italian guard…or was he policia?  I can’t remember, because O-M-G!  The Policia here are freaking adorable.  Like models, adorable.  I know I’m minimizing these gentleman based on their looks, but holy crap – the younger (30-something) guys look like they are straight out of a magazine.  Back to my point…..we showed the guard our e-ticket and were directed right in.  For the first time all day we were in air-conditioning and there was a bathroom.  An actual bathroom.  Cause y’all, those are a little hard to come by in Italy.  

The museums were packed to the gills with people.  I’ll spare you the details of the Sistne Chapel, but it was pretty damn awesome.  After winding our way through the museum, and through the troves of people, we finally made it into the main area where the Hand of God was giving life to Adam.  It – was – breathtaking!  The Policia wouldn’t allow pictures, and to my shame, I snapped some secret pictures.  I had to.  This was God.  Giving life to Adam.  As depicted by Michelangelo.  IN THE 1500’s!  There’s no way to explain that experience. There’s just not.

From there we walked through the Vatican Museum which was also amazing.  But nothing, in my humble opinion, can compare with God giving Adam life.  

By this time it was nearly 1:30pm or 2:00pm – things were pretty hazy because we were so exhausted and famished, so we made our way to the cafeteria in museum area.  We had some pasta, yogurt and some much needed water.

After leaving the Vatican we just couldn’t walk anymore, but we pushed on to visit a local grocery store to purchase some items for an al fresco dinner.  We purchased yogurt, fresh mozzarella, salami, prosciutto, strawberries, fresh baked bread and a few bottles of water.  We had decided after lunch, and after walking over 7 miles in the heat, sun and horrid humidity, that we were done for the day and wanted to stay in for dinner.  Thankfully, we did.  We were spent.

Once we got back to our hotel we collapsed and fell asleep for a few hours. By the time we woke up, we snacked, relaxed and called it a night.