There's no time
Florence was a blur. We think we saw everything, but who really knows. I remember churches, statues, architecture, famous people's birthplaces or places they lived. But when you dock in Livorno and book an excursion called Florence and Pisa, you know you have a busy day ahead.
We had 45 minutes to shop. That was a bad thing. We knew Florence was going to be the best place to shop on the whole cruise, so we knew we needed to buy things here. But we only had 45 minutes in which to do it. So, once we broke free of the tour, we rushed off to The Best of Caesar. The first thing we were shown was a $450 briefcase. Even the inexpensive ones were over $250. We were then shown some purses in that same neighborhood, so we thought it might be good to look at another place.
Running out of time, we went over to La Galleria Michelangelo. This was the brand-name store, so everything was even more expensive. Looking for a way out so we could go back and buy some reasonable purses at The Best of Caesar, the jacket salesmen stopped us. It was probably our fault, since we did stop and admire one of the jackets. Fifteen minutes later, Kristal had a new jacket and two new purses.
We did eat lunch in the oldest restaurent in Florence -- Buca San Giovanni. It was underground. It was also quite nice and the owner was walking around chatting with customers.
We were quickly whisked back to the bus so we could get over to Pisa. While walking to Pisa, our tour guide warned us of teenage gypsy girls who work in packs to rob tourists. They do their best to blend in with large groups and then pick everyone's pockets. We saw one group of them and our tour guide loudly told us all to "watch this girl" as she attempted to join our party. Wild.
We walked up toward Miracle Square in Pisa to see this Leaning Tower we had heard so much about and, honestly, we were both stunned. It was a lot cooler than I thought. First, it isn't just the leaning tower. There are three major buildings here. The Leaning Tower is neat but the Baptistry and the Cathedral were equally impressive, if not engineered a little bit better.
After a bath in radiation, a now-Godzilla-sized Kristal did her part to try to knock the Leaning Tower over, but, alas, she was unable to get the job done. The radiation wore off and we sat and had a soda while waiting for the other tour participants to join us.
On our trip south toward the ship, we passed Camp Derby, an American military base. Along the way, our tour guide pointed out prostitutes along the miles of road. There were no fewer than eight of them sitting by the roadside waiting for work. Some sat in picnic chairs with a small hut set up behind them. Sad, yes. Worse, they were all men (transvestites). Kristal couldn't believe it.
We got back to the ship and Kristal tried on her jacket -- it looks wonderful. We had a small supper and then went to the music and dance show Get Down Tonight. Afterward, it was time for the Chocoholic Buffet. All you can eat chocolate food. Even James met his match.
We then went to the Spinnaker Lounge to watch the Second City's adult show. It was very good. We have sort of become groupies of the Lafayette improv group, so it was fun to see some of the same types of things going on, only with unique twists.
After a stop in the Bliss Lounge it was off to bed for some much-needed sleep. We were going to sleep in because we didn't have an official excursion in the morning.
We left Lafayette Saturday afternoon (after tee-ball) and arrived in Chicago by 5 p.m. James's co-worker, Toni Fanizza, dropped us off at the airport, and we waited until our flight started to board for a 7:55 p.m. takeoff. Inside a spacious 747 manned by throw-back KLM stewardesses (skirtsuits and all), we flew overnight to Amsterdam (arriving at 10:40 a.m.) and hurried to our 12:05 flight to Barcelona. We landed in Barcelona at 2:15 p.m. We slept much of both flights, so we really didn't experience jet lag.
We shuttled from the airport to the ship and quickly moved through the boarding process and were on the Norweigen Gem. The Gem was a relatively new ship (first sailing in October 2007) and was just coming off a 13-day repositioning cruise from New York to Barcelona.
