July 10th Florence and Pisa

Same plan as Rome, we left the excursion in the hands of Port Promotions and had the same positive experience. Our driver / guide was Massimo and he had the same eight passengers as the previous day. By now we were a cohesive unit. We all agreed that we would want to spend as much time as possible in Florence, so we instructed Massimo to cut our leaning tower visit down to just 30 minutes. Because we travelled in a van, we were able to dive up to the parking lot of the tower. Bus coaches had to park 20 minutes away in a large lot. We were on the road to Florence before the buses had even arrived at Pisa. Our Florence visit started with a stop on a hilltop (Michael Angelo’s) to get an overview of the walled city. Once again our van was able to dive to the front door of all of the attractions where as coach tours must drop you off outside of the city walls. Massimo lives in the old city of Florence so he also showed us places, vistas, and neighborhoods that coach tours would not be able or even know to visit. We had lunch on our own and had two hours to shop in a central market or you could visit a church. Well our teenagers had seen enough churches (including the Vatican) so shopping was the plan. Everyone returned to the van with arms full of shopping bags. We were dropped off at the ship by 5pm and said a fond farewell to Massimo. Dinner was at Tequilas for some Tex Mex. The food and service was very good, the only complaint was that the restaurant is located in the central atrium and the noise level is high and there are frequently guests passing through the restaurant on their way to their staterooms. Cover was $15pp. We only had time to watch the Second City improve night and once again smiles all around.