Life's Journey

We docked at Livorno which is about a 20 minute train ride to Pisa and over an hour to Florence. We didn’t have any real plans today so we were on our own to discover everything the area had to offer. We signed up for a shuttle offered by the ship to take us to the train station. This could've been walked but it was quite a walk, worth the 12 euros to take the shuttle for sure. Last night I was woken up by my body in pain. I took some pain meds to help me sleep and hopefully ease my muscles a little. I've been taking slow release morphine twice a day to help with the general pain I'm experiencing, but this trip has pushed me over the edge. I've been pushing myself so hard the pain is sometimes unbearable and I find that it really catches up with me at night. So, I knew today was going to be a tough day and I needed to take it slow.

In true form the organization of the shuttle bus was crap. People were all over the place willy nilly. The workers were arguing over how to organize everything and the bus drivers were as frustrated as the passengers. But, I wasn’t going to let this start my day off wrong like it did in Rome so instead Roy and I started talking about what we wanted to do today. Neither of us really knew what was in Florence so we decided to start there and stop by Pisa on the way back to see the leaning tower. Finally we were on the shuttle and at the train station. We quadruple checked that we were on the correct train this time Funny now, not funny then. The train was nice and air conditioned, the seats were comfortable and it really didn’t matter that it was a full train. The ride took about an hour and a half to get to Florence.

When we exited the train station we walked right into Santa Maria Cathedral, a beautiful church. As I looked around I realized what a beautiful city Florence is with cobblestone streets and old world architecture. From here we walked to Il Duomo which is a beautiful domed church with stained glass throughout. We passed quite a few museums and various fountains and statues as we walked through the city. We found the remake of the statue of David - the real one was inside one of the museums, we decided not to go in but to keep walking and enjoying the sights, the remake would have to do. We went to Ponte Vecchio which is a famous bridge in Firenze (Florence). It was lined with jewelry and souvenir shops but a beautiful bridge none the less. We went to Palazzo Vecchio, Santa Croce, and La Cattedrale. We crossed the bridge to see one of the largest palaces in Europe. We again decided to forego going inside and continue our walking tour of the city. We did some shopping and enjoyed the sights.

We were both getting tired and I was crazy sore so we decided to catch the train to Pisa to check out the leaning tower. The train stopped at Pisa and continued on to Livorno where the boat is docked. Once we were settled on the train we realized there was no air conditioning - it was literally like being in a sauna fully dressed with strangers after walking the entire day through the city. We were on the train for an hour and a half. We decided to skip Pisa and go back to the ship. It had been a long day already and we were beat. We had also heard that there really isn't anything else in Pisa so it’s a quick stop that we just decided to skip all together.

We had a lovely day in Florence and found many treasures to bring home with us

Hugs and Smiles,Sarah