Week 4 Ports of call in France & Italy on the cruise

France - Villefrenche Port
We visited a lovely little port close to Nice and part of the Cote D’Azyr which is where Monte Carlo and Cannes are located. This was the only port where we did not dock on land and therefore took a tender boat to shore. Ben decided that he liked this port and we enjoyed the small side streets. Shelley practiced the little French she knows and we Ben ordered an ice cream continuing his goal of trying an ice cream in every city. We didn’t get around too much as Shelley was on the last of her sickie days so it was nice and relaxing.
Impressions: come back to see the small local townships that have been making perfume for centuries; quaint side streets; yummy but expensive food and gorgeous weather.

Pisa & Florence
We boarded a train to Pisa on a mission to participate in the international Pisa hand signal which is stand with ones arms above your head holding up the leaning tower of Pisa. Yep we did and took a photo off the long line of other tourists doing the same thing! There are some lovely other buildings on the same site although we didn’t end up going in as it was a 90 minute wait to go up the tower and we didn’t want to spend that time. We then scratched our heads and jumped on a bus which ended up going in the right direction and taking us back to the train station.
Then we bought a ticket for Florence and headed to the cultural and fashion centre of Italy. We tended to eat light whilst travelling mainly because we were having 3 course meals every meal and felt like we were eating for an army! We set out to visit an old apothecary that was approved by the Vatican and had been staff by monks who had been making concoctions for centuries. Of course we always kept an eye out for clothes for Laura and Shelley but if shopping wasn’t on the list the rule was we didn’t stop! Ben had his standard gelato; Chris had his beer and Shelley bought a plate of Murano glass with a Picasso painting design which is famous.

Impressions: lots of scooter bikes; history, history, history; OK coffee; good beer and ice cream and beautiful streets.

Rome
This was the big one we were waiting for, where we had to short list what we all wanted to see and timed ourselves to get around Rome. We caught a train 60 mins into Rome from the port and visited the Vatican first to see St Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel and the 12 Vatican museums along with the squillions of other tourists. We were told given I was autumn that it was off peak….not so sure.

Everyone enjoyed the Basilica and then it was off to find the Sistine Chapel, which proved to be more deceptive than we first thought. It was just like Ikea where you have to go through every department before reaching the checkout. The Chapel was the last museum and was glorious. Chris managed to take a few photos even though the man who was the official shusher would yell out no photos before shushing everyone.

We then sat outside the Vatican and had pizza and pasta before heading off to the Santa Maria della Concezione a most unusual place!!! Some 4,000 monks have their bones in the small basement of church and when they ran out of soil from Jerusalem they decorated the church with them. There were chandeliers made of rib bones and wall decorations with foot bones. It was not unlike the catacombs in Paris although more decorative!!! The practice went on until 1870 or so.

We took the underground to the Colosseum station and walked around it opting not to go in to make sure we got back to the ship in time. Famous last words!!! We underestimated that we were changing from the metropolitan to country rail services to get back to the port and it took us longer than anticipated to get to the next train to take us back. Alas we missed the train by 30 seconds and realised the next one would get us to the port station at the same time the last shuttle left before the ship left port!!!

It was one of those defining moments you only get when travelling to grow in character. We decided if we missed our boat we would catch a train to Naples our next port of call, stay over night and catch our boat then. We didn’t have the ship phone number in our mobile so we made the call home that all parents want at 2.00 am in the morning. So Shelley’s father was on his blackberry ‘cause his computer was at work searching the cruise lines web page looking for office no’s in Barcelona and Italy. Well we made it to the station and RAN for 1 km with others who were on our ship as well as the Queen Mary 2. We reached our shuttle with an Indian father and son and all let out a big cheer!!! We weren’t the last aboard either. Turns out the traffic in Rome was particularly bad something about the Pope being out and about and people came running in after us having caught taxis which we know from other people would have been $300 aussie dollars. We had a cup of coffee with the father and on team to celebrate.

Impressions of Rome: busy; people everywhere; amazing sculptures & paintings; lots of practice of our limited Italian; stress attack with no passports; come back to visit everything else

Naples
We opted for an excursion to Pompeii and had the taxi ride of our life (which also ended up costing us a bomb!). The speed limit was 80km we travelled at 140 kms/hr with poor old Chris jammed into this tiny car careering along as our driver abused others for getting in the way and stopped 1 cm short of each bus or car and we swerved in and out of lanes!!!! Excellent video footage….A nice hot tour around Pompeii which was interesting but we got a bit lost and used our little bit of Italian to break out. Back to the ship and a good hard earned rest. Impressions: noisy; amazingly chaotic city and traffic; great icecream

Sicily
We took it pretty easy today as we were recovering from too much walking and were all really tired!! So we took a walk into Palermo amidst the traffic and dust through the main food and second hand market. Ben had his best ice cream of the trip so far…alas lost in in the most classic way off the top of the cone.

We walked through the food market and got some terrific video footage of the motor scooters speeding down the narrow streets of the market and everyone and the dogs and cats jump out of the way. We sat for lunch in a tiny little café and ordered fish and calamari salad and cokes. The food was fresh and fantastic but our Italian didn’t extend to cups with the coke but we managed well enough. Back to the boat..ON TIME and onto our last day of cruising before returning to Barcelona.

Impressions: we had a FANTASTIC time; Ben & Laura have already booked the next cruise; food was good; easy way to change locations without moving your luggage; fun activities at night