Vacation Recap: Final Part- Cruise Day 6 & 7 Livorno, Italy and Villefranche, France

Ok… sorry for the long delay in posts.  It has been a busy week with work, the debate, keeping up with the bail-out progress, volunteering 8 hours this weekend with canvassing and a voter registration campaign in our county, and trying to get a little bit of rest in between.  Wow… there is a lot to talk about with the economy and the presidential campaigns right now, but let me finish the vacation recap.  I apologize in advance for any typos…. it is very late.

After a long day in Rome, we had another early morning start once we arrived at the port in Livorno, Italy, the “gateway to Tuscany” and the closest port for visiting the cities of Florence and Pisa.  We realized that Royal Carribean’s Voyager of the Seas was also docked in Livorno.  We chose an excursion that took us to the cities of Lucca and Pisa.  Lucca was first.  I really enjoyed Lucca because it was such a nice, clean, quaint town surrounded by its original Renaissance fortification walls.  Every corner you turn has a different piazza with historic buildings or beautiful cathedrals.  In the Cathedral of St. Martin, the tour guide told us how the pictures sculpted on the walls were to tell people stories through pictures, for instance, how to live each month of the year (i.e. preparing the land, harvesting, etc).  Inside the church was even more incredible, but unfortunately we could not take pictures.  Inside of the Cathedral of St. Martin is a cross with an image of Christ on it.  Supposedly the cross the Jesus died on was put on a boat once he was taken to be buried and sent out in the Mediterranean Sea.  Well… several historic reports say that the boat with the cross landed in Lucca and the one in the church is a replica of the original cross found in Lucca after Jesus’ death.  Every September 13th, the city has a festival to commemorate the historic occasion and the cross and replica of Christ are carried on a wagon through the city that is festively decorated with millions of candles outlining each building in the town.  We saw them setting the candles up since we were there just a couple days beforehand.   One of the most interesting things about the streets of Lucca was they had very high end stores that the shop owners kept immaculate.  Everywhere we turned, someone was cleaning the windows or mopping their marble floors.  Most of the stores were high end with items we could not afford, but we did find some familiar stores, although there was no Starbucks, which we found everywhere else in Europe.  There were also people on bikes everywhere, which was probably the best way to get around given the narrow streets.  I should probably mentioned that the famous composer, Puccini, was born in Lucca (La Boheme, Madame Butterfly, etc).

After our visit in Lucca, we drove 15 minutes to Pisa.  Pisa was extremely crowded with tourists and there were people every 5 steps trying to sell you something (mainly mini Pinocchios).  This became very annoying and made the experience in Pisa less enjoyable.  The Leaning Tower was supposed to be the bell tower of the cathedral, but starting leaning during construction in 1173.  Once they realized it would not fall, they commenced construction again and finished the tower.  It is opened for visitors to climb the 296 steps to the top, enjoy the view of Pisa and come back down within 25 minutes (after paying about 20 euros).  The Tower is part of what is referred to as the Field of Miracles, which includes the baptistry where someone could be baptized, and the cathedral (with 24 carat gold ceilings) where you could go once baptized.  The square also includes a hospital and a cemetery, and therefore tells the story of a Catholic man from birth to death.  Quite interesting.

After watching the Independence of the Seas leave the port before us, we were headed to France, our last stop.

One of the great things about the port in Villefranche is that the water is too shallow to dock, so we had to drop anchor in the middle of the harbor.  Beautiful!  We were only docked for 6 hours, but I was so sad that we couldn’t stay longer.  I LOVED France and Monaco (which is its own country).  Maybe it was because we visited Monaco and Monte Carlo, two of the most beautiful cities in French Riviera and on the beautiful south coast.  In the glamorous principality of Monaco, we were able to visit the church where Princess Grace was married and is now buried (St. Nicholas Cathedral) and the Prince’s palace.  After taking in the beauty of Monaco, we headed to Monte Carlo.  Monte Carlo is most known for its famous casino.  There is also a hotel there that is one of the most expensive in Europe, the Hotel de Paris.  The hotel is so exclusive, we could not even go into the lobby to take pictures.  You could tell the clientele by the vehicles parked outside the hotel.  It was just breathtaking everywhere we turned. We picked up some cute souvenirs and were back to the port.  As we headed back to the port, we passed a cliff overlooking the beach in Nice.  WOW.  I cannot explain how beautiful it was.  We did not get a photo, but I tried to get it on video.  The whole tour bus gasped in awe as we passed.  I begged the Cody parents to let me stay, but I was not successful.  Perhaps one day.  Leaving the port was a great site to behold and is now the picture on my desktop at work that I can stare at and wish I were there during a busy day.  We will definitely be back to France!

After leaving the port, William and I headed to a cake and champagne reception for all the couples celebrating honeymoons or anniversaries.

And now comes the only downside of the trip.  On the last night, we ran into a storm and the waves were pretty furious.  William and I managed to be just fine during the first couple hours of the ship traveling over the waves, but a few hours later, we both ended up with a bad case of motion sickness as did his mom and I am sure many many other people on the ship.  This was the only negative incidence we had.  Fortunately, having William’s dad with us, a physician, was a good thing.  He suggested sitting on the balcony and watching the waves, which sounded crazy, but actually worked.  We tried that for a while, but it was windy also and got pretty chilly out (very different from the 90 degree weather we had during the majority of our trip) and we had to come inside.  That’s when things got ugly, but we finally made it to sleep and woke up the next morning to find all was calm….literally.

It was a great trip and we again thank William’s parents for including us in such a wonderful journey and anniversary celebration!