Pisa and Florence (with photos)

 Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Oh boy!  We can’t get off the ship until 8:45, so there’s lots of time this morning.  And there’s even more since I woke up at 4:45!  I get to see the electric blue that comes before sunrise, and a sideways view of sunrise itself, and the little lighthouse that marks the entrance to the port of Livorno!

Nick wants to eat breakfast in a dining room.  We go to Taste and Ginger and I just get the express breakfast, but Nick can get his eggs Benedict, so he’s happy.  From there we go straight down to level four and exit the ship.  There is a driver organizing a tour (ish) to Pisa and Firenze (that’s Florence when I’m not showing off!). He needs seven people and already has four.  He’ll take us to Pisa, give us an hour to see the tower, take us to Florence, give us three hours there, stop at a viewpoint and deliver us back to the ship before they pull up the gangplank! Works for us!  It’s another huge Mercedes but this one has seats in the second and third row that face each other!

We get to know our new best friends and pretty soon get to Pisa.  He drops us off right outside the ancient wall that enclosed the square where the famous tower is located.  I didn’t realize that there is more to this experience than just the tower!  It is an entire church complex with a cathedral, a baptistry, and the bell tower.  There’s also a cemetery but we didn’t find that. 

We're so lucky to be in the right place at the right time.  There was a lady who
thought she might join us;  but she had walked away and lost her spot!

They call them umbrella pines.

sneaky portrait of our driver

It's always a good idea to take a photo of the meeting place!

And of course there a little market outside the walls.

I was so surprised to see all those buildings!  I guess I never thought
about where the tower would be.

Everything is so decorated.

Part of the medieval wall that encloses the square.

Guides are so clever!

It leans when viewed from the back, too!

Such a hoot watching people reproduce that iconic photo!

The pictures I’ve seen didn’t prepare me for the intricate decorations on the tower!! And I really didn’t know that the cathedral and baptistry would be so gorgeous.  It doesn’t take too long for me to get separated from Nick and Ginger;  but we have a time and meeting place and there’s only one way out!  I get a charge out of all the people posing with their hands out, as if they are holding it up! Every nationality! Every gender! Every age!  What a hoot!  Ginger saw a guy pretending to squash it!  That’s cool!

I manage to find my way back to the van after needlessly crossing the busy street twice!  Everyone gets back in time and we’re off to Florence.  It doesn’t take very long and we’re in Florence.  We get dropped off in sight of the Duomo (the amazing and glorious cathedral in the center of the city).  We have three hours to explore and shop and we use every minute.

We walk to the cathedral and bell tower and basin walking around it.  On the back side we find an outdoor cafe where we can eat and listen to a musician playing mostly classical music on a viola.  And he’s really good!  What a lovely experience to eat great food (we had pumpkin soup with truffles and crisp bacon, and a salad with pears, walnuts, and pecorino cheese. Oh and a bottle of chianti! The Italians we've met all say that chianti is the best wine.  This one was certainly grand.

It's so relaxing and perfect to sit here in this Italian afternoon;  but we've only got a little time to see what we can see. So, reluctantly, we leave our Ideal Tuscan repast and head toward the Ponte Vechio. First, though we spend a little more time marveling at this magnificent, iconic building.

This sign is on this 

unobtrusive building that we saw from the bus!

The gelato displays are so artistic!

Everywhere you look there is beauty and art!  Stunning statues and museums and even a chalk artist painting a face on the pedestrian street!  It's as though the whole city's existence is just to promote beauty.

We're not walking down the shopping street with all the big name stores.  But when we reach the bridge we discover that all the little shops that line it are jewelry stores.  Much gold, many sparkly stones! There's a little pasty shop and Nick gets a meringue.  Actually he gets two because the seller "misheard" and and tried to charge him for two.  When corrected he gave him a "deal", two for five instead of the one he wanted for three fifty!

Time to head back to the rendezvous point, but I'd really like to authentic Italian gelato before we leave the country.  Back at the van our driver points out a shop quite close by I quickly choose a small cup of chocolate with hazelnuts and happily slurp while Ginger and Nick make their selections.  Back at the van our driver says we just have one little stop to make before the viewpoint.  He has a friend with a wine and olive oil store and we'll have a tasting. It's a chianti, but not as good as the one we just had, and we pass although a couple of people bought the wine and oil package.

This candy store is a chain!  We saw Spider in another city, too!

Pinocchio is everywhere!

On to the viewpoint for the most-seen view of the city and the Ponte Vechio and who can resist repeating a million others photo?  It's just perfect, that's why everyone takes! 

Now it's time to go home and we sail through the Italian countryside, even catching sight of a few vineyards and orchards. We arrive back at the ship well before our eight o'clock deadline and even before dinner, which is good, because goodness knows we haven't had anything to eat all day!

Back to our stateroom to plan our evening.  We don't want dinner quite yet, so Nick goes off to get a beeper from Taste, the other satellite dining room.  When he comes back he says I need to go to the Service Desk because the will refund my money for the messaging service package we all bought.  We were supposed to be able to message each other anywhere on the ship without WiFi but the darn thing never worked.  We've done just fine without it anyway!

And there it is - the postcard everyone has seen!

Home again, home again, jiggidy jig!

The beeper goes off and we head downstairs.  They have misheard the number in our party and we wait a few moments for our table to be prepped, then settle in with a glass of wine (mine is shiraz) and peruse the menu. Tonight the roasted beet salad and chicken Madeira strike my fancy and for dessert we all share Bananas Foster, Warm Chocolate Lava Cake , making a reprise, and Brownie S'More.  The Bananas Foster drops out of the rotation quite quickly after making a disappointing showing, and I drop out shortly after because I just can't eat another bite of anything, even sugar and chocolate!

We return to Howl at the Moon.  They are just so good!!  And the bartender has all the ingredients for a Rusty Nail!  A couple of hours of musical joyousness and we head upstairs to prepare for another day filled with new sights and tastes and smells.  We'll be in Cannes in the morning and we have a tour booked.

The ship has hit some rougher seas and walking is best done holding on to the handrails that line all the halls.  We've left the door to our balcony open to keep the room cool and when Nick opens it we're hit with a could have jackets that were hanging on the wall by the door! The wind if pretty fierce until we get the door closed!  And the balcony door as well!  Guess we won't be listening to the ocean tonight!!  Happily no one is feeling any mal de mer and we all settle in quite quickly. (I think we have a sea day after tomorrow and maybe I can come to terms with the computer gods and get some photos into the blasted computer.  If not.... doesn't bear thinking about!)