Mediterranean cruise and European adventure - Day 8 - Livorno (Florence and Pisa)

Livorno (Florence and Pisa)

This day proved to be exhausting and perhaps not well planned but was also marred by traffic delays, hot temperatures and some scheduling problems. It isn’t that I didn’t plan, but I think ultimately we bit off more than we could chew. The problem was that Emmaline wanted to go to Pisa and while I was curious to see the tower, ultimately, I thought that Florence was more intriguing, even if we’ve been there before (well, Roger and I had been there).

We got up, ate breakfast at Cabanas and made our way off the ship at around 8:40. In Livorno cruise ships dock in the industrial area of town so we took a 15 minute shuttle ride to the center of town to meet up with the bus service we had booked (Tuscany Bus) that would take us first to Florence and then Pisa. We arrived early and waited for the bus to arrive. When the bus arrived, there was some kind of issue with some ladies who I think had five people but had only booked for four or something and they were mad because the bus was full, but then it sounded like when they declined to board, the woman in charge sold some of their seats to someone else and then only two could get on because they were trying to sell their tickets to someone else. It was sort of a mess, there was a lot of yelling and we were delayed leaving by about 10 minutes.

Finally we were on the road and a little ways outside of Livorno we came upon a traffic jam. That delayed us another further 10 minutes or so, but I was relieved when it cleared up. Unfortunately, a bit later we happened upon another traffic jam and this one was really bad, delaying us nearly 30 minutes. Our time in Florence was very limited so I was rather concerned at this point. I had given us quite a bit of buffer to get over to our main destination, the Pitti Palace, but now it was getting really tight. Our tickets allowed us entry between 11-11:30 and we were originally scheduled to arrive in Florence at 10:45 so I thought that would be plenty of time. Unfortunately, we arrived at the bus depot in Florence at 11:20!

We raced off the bus, but Emmaline and I really had to use the restroom so we made our way to the Burger King we saw near the train station (which is sort of part of the bus depot). The angry lady behind the counter wouldn’t let us use the restroom without buying something so we joined forces with another American who was in line to order and said told Angry Burger King Lady that we were with her. Angry Burger King Lady scowled but let us into the bathroom.

After that, we raced to the other side of the train station and found a taxi. After about a 10 minute ride, we made it to the Pitti Palace around 11:40. I sheepishly handed them our tickets but they said it was no problem at all. I had originally allocated us from 11 AM - 1 PM there, which meant we didn’t have as much time as we would have liked, but we still enjoyed ourselves at the palace and it’s collection of items was really impressive. I’m glad we went.





We left a little later than I meant to, around 1:10, but I thought we were still doing okay on time. We walked to a nearby pizza restaurant, Gusta Pizza and had some amazing pizza. It was probably the best pizza I had the entire trip. There was a line out the door and it was bit chaotic (thus, not the best atmosphere) but worth it for the incredible food.



After lunch we made our way back to the bus depot on foot, buying a couple of small souvenirs and crossing the famous Ponte Vecchio. Then we stopped at a little bakery for some treats before taking a short detour to stop at a wine bar (of a famous Italian wine family: Antinori) so Roger could peek inside, but we didn’t have time for him to taste anything as our time was already getting really short. We made it back to the bus depot right in the nick of time at 2:30.

From there we journeyed to Pisa. We arrived in Pisa at 4:10 and were told to meet back a the bus in one hour. Busses park about a 10-15 minute walk from the tower so we all walked as a group so we would know where to go.  Again, we had a little ticketing problem for our tickets to climb the tower. I had been half-heartedly stalking the Leaning Tower website for tickets to buy them when they went on sale, but life got busy in the month leading up to our departure and I missed the day the tickets went on sale and the time slot we wanted wasn’t available. I resorted to third party tour sellers as they sometime buy tickets for groups and sell them, so they often have different times available. I had found some for 4:30 from Viator which were perfect and purchased them. The thing about Viator is that they are a like Expedia or Travelocity or something. They are more like an online travel agent, so the third party company that had the tickets sent them to me and they were for 3:45 entry with an arrival time of 3:30 which was not going to work and I knew it.  When I contacted the vendor they told me that there were no other times available and that on the website if I checked the "additional information" tab, the seventh bullet point down on the page indicated that they don't guarantee a time, they would just give you the closest available and that all sales were non-refundable. I found this sort of ridiculous so I contacted Viator and they said that there was really nothing they could do as each operator set their own guidelines.



So I had these tickets that I paid way way too much money for because, of course, the independent operator had marked them up like crazy beyond what the tower normally charges and they were for the wrong time and they wouldn’t help me and Viator wouldn’t help me either. (I did open a dispute with my credit card company, however.) So we arrived at the tower and I again sheepishly handed over the tickets and they sort of frowned at me, but ultimately took pity on us and let us climb. So up we went 300 steps around a tilted tower, which was very awkward at times. We got to the top and recovered a bit, took some photos and then headed back down, used the facilities, purchased more water and made our way back to the bus. Oh, of course we took the requisite photo, but it was hard to get Emmaline to hold her hands in just the right way so eventually I called it good enough and on we went because time was tight. In the end, it actually came out pretty well!



We got back to the bus right on time and had another drive back to the port, this time taking us directly back to our ship (at which we all clapped when they announced it) and back at 6 PM - dinner time.

So here’s the schedule Tuscany Bus gave me vs. how it actually played out:

• Drive from Livorno to Florence - scheduled: 9:15 -10:45 (1.5 hours), actually: 9:25 -11:20 (nearly 2 hours)
• Drive from Florence to Pisa - scheduled: 2:45 - 3:45 (1 hour), actually: 2:45 - 4:10 (nearly 1.5 hours)
• Drive from Pisa to Livorno - scheduled: 5:00 - 5:30 (30 minutes), actually 5:10 - 6:00 (nearly 1 hour)

So as you can see, we had much less time than we thought we would at each location. They anticipated a total of 3 hours on the bus for the day and we were actually on it for 4.5 hours, even more when you factor in that we were 10-15 minutes sitting on the bus waiting to go (which isn’t even factored in the times above). Some of this is traffic, but I think also some of it is overly ambitious scheduling on the part of Tuscany Bus. Really, I think that there’s simply not enough time in each place once it really shakes down. We probably should have just picked one thing or the other. That said, I’m really glad I saw Pisa and the tower but also the Pitti Palace and lunch were both great in Florence, so I don’t know. It sure was a lot of time spent on a bus, though.

Back at the ship, Emmaline wanted to go right to dinner, but Roger and I wanted to stop by the room for a quick refresh so that’s what we did. Roger and I made our way to Animator’s Palate to meet Emmaline there, arriving around 6:10. This night was "Pirate Night" and we usually dress up quite a bit it, but space in the luggage was limited this time around so we all chose instead some pirate themed t-shirts. We did notice that the Navigator was showing pirate face painting in the kid's club so Emmaline went off to do that after dinner. On this evening we also had the a show in Animator’s which is a fun animation show where we each draw our own little stick figure type drawing and they are brought to life on the screens around the room. It was quite a lot of fun to see.

Roger went back to the room to shower while I went to see about sign-up for spin class the next day because they had put the sign up sheet out at 5 PM. Unfortunately it was already completely full and already had a pretty full wait list. Ah well. Next I made my way across the ship to Palo to see if we were still on the wait list for Palo brunch. Still on the list. It wasn’t looking good. On my way back to the room, I saw in the Navigator that Captain Jack Sparrow was going to be meeting at 8 PM. As I was wearing my “Sparrow is My Co-Pirate” t-shirt, I decided a meet might be in order and went to do that. He wasn’t as good as the last Jack I met, but it was still fun. From there I met up with Roger and Emmaline in the Walt Disney theatre to see the variety entertainer for the evening, JunNk.

JunNk is a lot of fun. We saw them on a cruise a little over a year ago, but it was a short 30 minute set in the smaller venue, Fathoms. We were excited to see a longer set on the big stage. They didn’t disappoint and put on an entertaining show of music and comedy.

After the show, we had some time to kill before the pirate party and fireworks so we went back to the room and watched some stateroom TV. At 10:15 we went to deck 9 for the pirate party. Emmaline found her friends in the “Kid Zone” near the stage, while Roger and I went to deck 10 where things are a little less chaotic. We enjoyed the show and fireworks and checked out the pirate buffet in Cabanas for the first time ever. It’s too bad we weren’t hungry because it actually looked pretty good. I grabbed a little bit of fruit and a cookie anyway because vacation. Emmaline danced until the party was over and then we all met back up at the room. I’m pretty sure I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Click here for Day 9.