Third Day of Cruise — Port of Livorno, serving Pisa and Florence
For some reason the clock light wouldn’t work last night and the alarm didn’t go off this morning, so we are an hour late. Since we aren’t taking an excursion, that shouldn’t be a problem, though I have a feeling that the day is going to take longer than we expect to get places with the various connections that we need. (I have the light on the clock working again now.)
An all-hands announcement just started a moment ago, so I stepped out into the hall to hear it, since it wasn’t coming over any speaker in the cabin. The assistant cruise director was letting us know that the ship had just been cleared for people to get off (8 minutes ahead of schedule)e I couldn’t hear the rest of the announcement, which I think was about what you could do on ship today, because people a cabin over (opposite direction from the rest of our party) and opposite side, were arguing in their cabin, and opened the door to yell at each other from room to hallway during the rest of the announcement. We still have our final shower to get finished up before heading on up for breakfast.
Did the same Raffles Terrace breakfast before heading out to Florence. Got off the ship and stood around looking around at the foot of the gang plank for a few minutes before one of the crew finally announced that the shuttle bus to the train station was at the end of the pier. So we walked down and paid for the shuttle round trip.
We arrived at the train station around 9:30 and didn’t see any train going to Florence until 11:10, and according to the tour book there should be trains every hour. So we checked at the ticket window, and they sold us a ticket via Pisa. 20 minutes to Pisa, a 25 minute wait, and an hour 15 trip to Florence. Got there 20 minutes sooner than if we had waited for the direct 11:10 ride. Got there at 12:10.
We picked up a city map, and confirmed that trains left back to Livorno every hour at 28 after, then took the walking tour of the city.
The tour started by the Duomo, an impressive church with an impressive dome. The story we got was that the Duomo was built with a big hole in its roof, just waiting for a grand dome to cover it … but the technology needed to create such a dome ad yet to be invented.
We also saw and heard an incredible string group playing music on the street near the Duomo. I didn’t know until after we had left that they had a CD for sale. I probably would have encouraged Betsy to buy it.
The rest of Florence was a lot of sculpture and impressive buildings. Really enjoyed the church that was a converted granary, especially stepping inside and hearing the organ played. We think the organist was practicing for a wedding that might have been happening later in the day. There were flowers on the pews down the one side that made us think so, as well as the music she was practicing.
But the most interesting Renaissance art we found was that in the store dedicated to the Renaissance artist Disney ….. 😉
When we made it to the end of the walk, and saw the bust in the middle of the bridge, we finally stopped and purchased some gelato before walking back. We all purchased the EUR 2 cone size. The cone itself was small, but the amount of gelato they could pile on it was amazing. I really was loath to pay the EUR 2 for the cones, until I saw what we got. We really enjoyed the cones as we walked our way back, having 40 minutes to make the train or wait another hour.
The train back itself was nice, and double-decker. We slept some, and then caught the shuttle bus back to the ship. Back by 4:30 p.m.
Currently we are planning on catching the 7:30 show in the Stardust Theatre, and having dinner after, at Windows, so we took an afternoon “tea time” snack at the Raffles Terrace before swimming. Nathan swam this time, and seemed to enjoy it. We are using our goggles, which helps a lot, and the water may be a bit warmer than it was the first day. But we both agreed that the salt water is funny to adjust to in the pool.
Well, Jennifer Fair, tonight’s featured performer at the Stardust Theatre, was a good singer, a big, opera voice, that we enjoyed, but wasn’t one that really pulled us all in. She was a little bit inflexible with her voice. Country sung as opera isn’t as good as country sung as country, for example.
When we got to dinner, it seemed to be the evening for service issues. I noticed a couple in the side window seat that seemed to be having all sorts of people come by to try to resolve something, but the lady just always seemed to be upset. Wine was poured to no avail.
In our case, about the same time, they served three of us our starters, didn’t serve Nathan’s, and went away. We waited for five minutes, taking a couple of minutes to realize they really had forgotten, before starting to try to signal someone going by with fingers, hand, arm. When we finally got our waiter’s attention, she asked the person who had delivered the starters about it, and she found Nathan’s starter on the service table, on another stack, and had been there the whole time. But by that time, Carly had gotten so tense about it that she only ate about ¾ of her salad, one piece of her pasta, and none of her chocolate ice cream.
When they got Nathan’s course to him, I asked to speak to a Maitre’d, and told him the basic story, just so someone would know what had happened, besides the waiter. I also mentioned that we had gone over 15 minutes with no one attending to our drinks at the same time, but that they had taken care of those when they took care of the starter.
But Carly never recovered. So we let her go to the cabin when the dessert came.
I asked for tea with dessert, and we got the cup, then the cream, then watched the hot water go by with one server, before another one came with it when I was over half-way through eating my cheese plate.
I just don’t think it works well for us to dine late. Better to have dinner and then snack late, rather than the other way around.
At The Rainbow 