We woke up the next morning to a cloudy, rainy sky, but we weren’t going to let the ruin our day. The name of our excursion for this day was “Florence and Pisa On Your Own”. It was essentially exactly as it sounds. Really the only guidance we had was a bus ride to and from each city and a tour guide that gave us plenty of information along the way. But once we got to each place, we were on our own. There were some cities where we wanted/needed a lot more guidance, but this was perfect for us for these two cities. Most, if not all, of the other tours available for this port were more detailed tours through a few of the top attractions at one city or the other. We felt it was best to get a little bit of both and that is just what we got.
Our first stop was Pisa, we had about an hour to explore the area on our own here. When we were told an hour, we were a little worried it wouldn’t be enough time, but it was just right. I wouldn’t say underwhelmed is the right word for Pisa, as it was very cool to see the iconic tower, but the area was much, much smaller than what we expected. The “Square of Miracles” as it is called, consists of the Leaning Tower, a cathedral, a baptistery, and a cemetery. All relatively close to each other, with some shops on the one side of the square. There was a brief downpour during our time there and we all huddled into one of the shops which was very convenient. I know it may sound obvious, but I was really amazed at how much the tower is actually leaning. It depends on which side of the tower you are standing on as it is much more prominent from a certain angle. It really is a wonder how it is still standing.
We walked around a little more to take pictures, then headed back to our bus. We then had a relaxing hour and a half or so ride to Florence. Here we had about 3 hours to walk around on our own. I would have liked a little more time to go into some of the museums and other buildings, but 3 hours was a good amount of time to hit the highlights.
The Florence Cathedral towers over the city, so we made sure that we got a close up of it. We also went by Palazzo Vecchio and Piazza della Signoria which has one of the replicas of the famous David statue among many, many other statues, both replicas and originals. There was a long street that was lined on either side with statues of many of the famous Italians, including Michelangelo, Macchiavelli, Vespucci, DaVinci, etc.
We continued walking around the city and went to Ponte Vecchio, the famous bridge over the Arno River. We then walked along the river back towards our group’s meeting stop. We stopped for a little snack where my mom had to have a real Italian cannoli. We likely would have spent a little more time exploring the area, but the rain started to pick back up again. We felt that we had hit a good amount of the main highlights of the city, and decided to stay dry.
We met back up with our group and got on board our bus. Our driver then took us across the river and up into the nearby mountains. From here we were able to get some awesome views of the city, including the Cathedral.
Our bus dropped us back off at our ship. We had dinner then headed back to our room to get ready for our next day in Marseilles, France!
It's a Magical Life 