Day 10-Livorno

Our stop today was Livorno. Our excursion took us to Florence and Pisa. We started out the day with an hour bus ride to Florence. We were given so much information! Florence is a city you should spend days in not hours. We both said that Florence is place we would go back to. Some of the high lights were Piazza Della Santissima Annumziata. You could drop of children, no questions asked and they would receive and education and be taken care of.

Florence Cathedral there is a large baptistery with the "Golden Gate" doors. Our tour guide told us you weren't allowed to go into the church unless you were baptized, and back then they used to immerse you completely in water.😏

We saw a replica of the David in the Piazza Della Signoria. Along with some other naked statues.😳Next was Galleria Delgi Uffizi. Saw the longest river in Tuscany, Arno, and the Ponte Vecchio (gold market). Then we had lunch, more pasta. Then we wandered around for a bit, got more gelato. Then we met back up with our tour group and headed to Pisa. It was funny because the tower is leaning so much,  but when we were taking pictures it really doesn't look that bad! The tower is just a bell tower, that took 200 year to build because of wars and things. They started in 1173 and completed in 1372! It was reinforced in 1990-2001, so it won't tip over. 

It was a good day to end the cruise on. We walked about 18,000 steps today. We get off the boat tomorrow morning and have one more night in Rome.

 

Day 9-Genoa Italy

Genoa, Italy

We decided last minute to schedule a tuk tuk ride through the city. I am so glad we did! Our driver was great and very knowledgeable. The tour focused on the old town, with it being a port town you can imagine it has a pretty colorful past.😬 It still has a red light district, which funded the Santa Maria Maddalena church (second church pictured, I am standing in front of). It boasts of 12 confessionals so you wouldn't have to talk to the same priest everyday. Our tour guide told us many times that they were stingy when building. To save money they painted some buildings 3 dimensional so they looked ornate. Like in the first building pictured. That building also has two fake windows. I guess they had a window tax. We noticed several buildings with fake windows. They had a strong army so they never really got attacked by pirates, but the way they laid out the streets was for protection. In the older pard of town the roads were very narrow and none of them are straight, they are all curved. He said if they were attacked the enemy would have to break up into small groups and they couldn't see what was coming. He also said it was where jeans and chocolate were invented. But they don't get credit for either. They are also famous for their pesto and focaccia, so we had some for lunch. We didn't love it. After the tour we explored Piazza De Ferrari, Porto Soprano (an entrance to the city), where they think Christopher Columbus was born, and Porto Antico. I had a huge headache so we went back to the boat and took a nap. The food on the ship is not great. We have only been to the dinning room twice, we usually go to the buffet. I should have know a lot of the food would be fish on a Mediterranean cruise.

 

Day 8-Marseille France

France✅We visited Marseille today and did a 5 hour, 15 mile e-bike tour. It was nice to give our feet a break! Our first stop was the Santa Maria Major Cathedral. It had some beautiful glass decorations there were even glass cherubs and fish suspended from the ceiling. It had glass trees, fruit, and people. I loved them! We then visited Fort St. Jean, which had a great overlook of the original walls of Marseille, the two big churches, and the prison Island Chateau d'If where the Count of Monte Christo was based. Our next stop was Palais Longchamp, it was built to bring water to the city. A massive building that has museums in the two sides, a fountain in the middle, and a park in the back that used to house a zoo! Our last stop was the city center where we tried some local pastries and walked around a bit. On our way back to the boat one of the older ladies in our group got her bike wheel stuck in a train track and crashed hard! A police officer ended up driving her back to the boat, then an ambulance came and fixed her up.  It was pretty bad. Once we got back on board we rested for a bit, then we went to dinner and a show. Another good day!