The drive from Pisa to Florence was pretty uneventful….the one good thing is that all of the traffic is heading from Florence to the beach (the other way), so, again, we are moving along pretty well.
The one bad thing is that today is Sunday, so, no tour of the dome or chance to climb the steps…
The Pano de Firenze….I have got to look up how Firenze gets an ‘FL’ in english….
The city wall….
We parked and then went and saw the David…..had a lot fun with the other Mom’s comments during that trip “Wow, it’s bigger than I thought” “He has some big hands and feet”….No pictures (because we weren’t supposed to take them) but she did, so, when I get back to the land of free internet I will pull them off of the email and make a post out of that….
Church. Dome.
I try really hard to avoid pictures of old landmarks marred by new things (the church in Marseilles had cranes all around it; there was no way I could avoid having them in the shot and it drove me crazy). I normally wouldn’t have taken this picture but you can see the renovation effort going on right now, and how much brighter the one side is compared to the other….
We walked down to another square…..
Which has the fake David…..we stopped and had pizza on the curb.
Guess I should talk more about the weather, because I’m sure it’s going to be one of the top three memories of this trip. The good thing is that it is bright blue skies and the views and sights are just fantastic. The bad part is that it’s hot. Hot and humid. And that’s a disaster for Suzanne, who has been lamenting that why can’t it be as cool as it was last week or as cool as it looks like it will be next week. I’m trying to see the bright side, at least it’s not pouring rain. But it’s hot. We brought three water bottles and three plastic bottles off the ship with us; they were gone about halfway through the day.
So we shared the excursion with a couple from Kansas City and their 10-year old daughter. Sophia, pictured here with Fric and Frac.
I guess this picture is a good reminder for me to remember to fetch pictures off of Fric and Frac’s devices at the end of this…
A better picture of Cpher and Sophia getting a picture with the King Tut street vendor….
Especially fond of the pose here….
The Old Bridge….took a lot of work to get this picture without people in the way….
And the view back into the city from the shops on the Old Bridge…
Sophia offered to take this photo of us…..
This guy got some change from Matthew; that’s some pretty decent sidewalk chalk art…
Our guide asked us if we wanted to go to a vineyard and see some of the Tuscan countryside after Florence. We said ‘ok’ even though that type of thing isn’t really our cup of tea…..
Olive trees. Hand-picked so the farm/vineyard can retain it’s organic-friendly designation.
The guide (on the right0 telling us about the casks that the olive oil is stored in…
The 15th Century wine cellar….
Only got a picture of the sign at the front of the farm at the end. 10 Euro for the visit, which seemed steep to us until we saw how much Carnival was charging to go here….purchased a bottle of the reserve and a bottle of the olive oil
We weren’t sure which side of the ship had the best views; one person on the facebook group for the cruise had placed multiple calls to Carnival to figure out that starboard was the side to be on to face port when we docked. And that’s been mostly true, although I think the port view sucks since we port in the big industrial areas (it’s not like the Caribbean where the docks are specific for the cruise ships).
But I’m happy with port; we face land as we arrive and and as we leave each port. We are opposite the sun in the evenings, which is nice for Suzanne…we can always go up onto the Lido deck and watch the sunset….
Heading to Rome
General Breezy Thoughts:
- Dinner was just Suzanne, Cpher, and myself….Matthew opted out for pizza (and he was fine the rest of the evening). I had Jerk Pork Loin, Suzanne and Cpher had Braised Short Ribs. Wait staff is trying too hard; gave us multiple desserts to take back to Matthew……
- I’ve fallen behind a little big on blogging (today is the at sea day and I’m catching up)…I really don’t remember what we did this night.
- Souvenir count: low. Cpher is buying a keychain at each port. No major purchases for Mom and Dad yet. Matthew also getting into keychain deal and soccer stuff awaits….
