This was our first port in Italy.  Some of us had been to Florence before so the thought was to visit only Pisa.  Others wanted to go to Florence instead.  It was a train ride to each location from the port.  We heard the night before that there might be a rail strike so we were not sure about taking the train.  Even if we were able to get there, there might be a risk of getting back in time before the ship sailed.

We saw that Hertz was renting cars on the dock so we collectively decided to rent a car instead of risk the train.  That would allow us to go our own way and visit both Florence and Pisa rather than splitting up and each couple going to one or the other.

The women must have thought it was funny we were going to try to drive in Italy.

We were all glad that Darrell volunteered to do the driving. Mark was a great navigator and we found our way to Florence without too much difficulty.  First stop was to buy something from the open air market.

Then a lot of walking to see many of the buildings.

We then walked over to the beautiful canal that flows through Florence.

Then gelato before we returned to the car.

The drive over to Pisa was not too far about 1 hr and the highway seemed to be without any major issue. But once we reached the town we could not find the famous leaning tower.  We circled around for awhile, and kept trying to follow some signs that we thought were pointed in the right direction.  We finally stopped at a gas station to ask for directions and we were only 1 mile away.  It was getting late in the afternoon when we finally parked the car and walked a few blocks.  The sun was basking on the buildings. It took our breath away to see the tower and adjacent buildings.

We didn’t want to be too late getting back to the ship so we headed back to the dock.  It was more traffic than we had anticipated and the time was slipping away.  We stopped to get gas and find directions when these two Japanese gals from the cruise were doing likewise and asked us to follow them to return their rental car and then give them a lift.  We did that but then they had a lot packages they wanted to move over to our car and it was getting complicated.  Hertz was there and said they would drive them, so we headed back, finding our way to the dock.  It was 6:15 pm when we arrived, only 15 minutes to spare.  Good thing we didn’t miss the boat.  We had a whole 15 minutes before dinner.  Plenty of time.

[More Pictures of Florence]

[More Pictures of Pisa]

Categories: Vacation
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