Cruising - Florence Rome and Naples

Monday 20th August 2007 – Livorno (Florence)


Docked at Livorno at 7.00am. Livorno is the Port City for Florence in the central part of Italy 300km North of Rome in the Tuscany region. We joined our first tour (Florence on your own). We did this as getting to and from Florence is expensive and difficult so the tour at least got us there in an air-conditioned bus with a tour guide giving info about points of interest along the route. We left at 7.45am with a stop along the way at a leather factory outlet shop called Piero Tucci. Quick toilet break and review of beautiful but expensive leather including Bally, Valentino, and Hugo boss, then continue to Florence (Total travel time 1.5 hours) We arrived at Piazza Santa Croce which is the main Square with a large Basilica which is the principal Franciscan church of Florence and a minor Basilica of the Roman Catholic church. Michael Angelo, Galileo and Machiavelli are buried. We had our first Italian Cappuccino while we planned our next few hours in Florence. We walked towards the markets, found an internet cafe where we downloaded some wireless drivers and then continued to the markets. While at the internet cafe I rang my Australian help desk (Tim) to check which drivers I needed and discovered that he had been to the exact same locations (Square and Markets) when he came to Europe a couple of years ago.
Pam found some Murano glass which she brought and we walked back to the Santa Croce and had lunch at the Santa Croce Square Restaurant which was a disaster from start to finish. Bad and slow service, wrong orders, and the only good point was it provided shelter from a brief heavy rain downpour. We met our guide, back to the coach and a quick tour over the River Arno to drive past the posh part of town including the Pitti Palace (Home of Medici family). One of the direct descendants of this family ensured that the family’s very large collection of art work stayed in the Florence area where it still is today.
At night we tried to get the wireless drivers working but as yet we are still not back on line.


Tuesday 21st August 2007 – Civitavecchia (Rome and the Vatican)


Berthed at 7am and as Rome is an hour and a half from the port city of Civitavecchia we had decided to join the group which took the bus to the city where we could explore on our own. Excellent commentary driving into Rome and the bus parked right at the entrance to the Vatican. We had decided to see the Cistine Chapel and St Peter Basilica so we headed for the Vatican Museum (where you enter the Cistine Chapel) and the queues were around two and a half to three hours long when we got there at 9:45am!! We were approached by a person promoting tours of the museum, saying he could get us in within twenty minutes if we paid $29:00 euro per person with a guide. We decided to accept this rather then wait the 3 hours as we were only in Rome for the day. He then escorted us and a couple of other people through the back streets causing us some concern that we were in the process of being ripped off. However, he was true to this word and armed with a radio transmitter headphone to hear the guide we joined the queue and were inside within 20 minutes. Our guide was an American who lived in Rome and had extensive knowledge of Roman art and history. He was with us for around 2 – 3 hours and was the best guide and conveyor of knowledge we had ever met. He showed us a number of wings of the Vatican Museum, the Cistine Chapel and St Peter’s Basilica all of which were absolutely mind blowing with history, art and beauty! We were “Vaticaned Out” so we caught a taxi to the Trevi Fountain where we had lunch and then we started walking back towards the Vatican where we had to meet the cruise bus. Around a couple of corners and there was the Pantheon built in 27 BC. To people from a country who’s history began with Captain Cook this blows your mind.
Taxi back to the Vatican, Paul has a coffee and Pam buys a couple of nick knacks and its time to catch the bus back to Cittavecchia and the ship.
Dinner was as the usual excellent quality and we went to the show “I love the nightlife” by the Celebrity Singers and dancers.


Wednesday 22nd August 2007 – Naples (Napoli) – Isle of Capri


We are loving our trip – so much to see. Really wish we had listened to the history lessons. Arrived in Naples today an on advice we skipped Naples and caught a hydrofoil to the Isle of Capri which was also very beautiful but hot.
Driving up the coast on tiny, tiny winding roads to the top of Capri was hair raising. Cabbie was about 90 – streets are about 6 feet wide and carry 2 cars and they all try and overtake each other! Drop away to a sheer cliff face – I just closed my eyes! Had lunch at the top town of Ana Capri and walked along the narrow streets commenting on the number of tourists on this relatively small island. When we arrived there were just boatloads coming in from Naples, Sorrento and other Mediterranean ports. We did not make it to Sorrento or Positano which were hoping to as the day was very hot and hazy with not particularly good views of anything. We were back on board at around 4:30 and pleased to be back in our air conditioned cabin! Had dinner at our usual table and went to the 9pm show which was a New York tenor called Alberto Sanchez and a comedian Mike Goddard from the UK – both were excellent.
Our trip is about a quarter over – it has flown so far.
At the end of the day we decided to try to communicate with Sydney so we called Tim on the mobile and he said he would call us back. We then lost all mobile reception as we headed out towards Greece so we went to the Ocean Cafe which has wireless connection and sent emails and also sorted out Pams work emails that continue to come in regularly despite an automated message that says she is away.
We finally got to bed at 2.00pm and because we change time zones tomorrow that made it 3.00am