Thread: Brilliance of the Seas; Nov. 13 - 25, 2008 (Potty Squatties LOL)

Originally Posted by *Lars*

Hi Judy - I love reading this - keep it coming....I miss that suite now

Hi Lars I'm trying not to miss anything, I'm going by my little notes and memory

Originally Posted by cruisin' chick

Great report so far Too bad about Cannes (we had to miss Kona because of heavy waves so I understand the disappointment).

Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry you missed a port on your cruise too! But it sometimes happens, have to go with the flow

Originally Posted by *Lars*

he is keeping it behind bars

Next stop was Santa Croce Church. I think these are it

We didn't go inside the Church, so we loaded back into the Taxi and headed to our drop off point by the Duomo. We had to be back by 2pm to head to Pisa for our Climb up the Tower.

We walked into the Duomo area and then down the streets to pass over Ponte Vecchio. On the way to Ponte Vecchio we stopped for a bathroom/coffee/gelato break. This was my first and by far the absolute best gelato I had while on this trip. The gelato was a cross between ice cream and whipped cream, it was so creamy. I got the Vanilla Mousse and it was the perfect choice for me

We lost Robin a few times on Ponte Vecchio as her weakness (jewelry stores) line the entire bridge We then walked down to Pitti Palace and took some pictures of the outside. We debated going inside but there wasn't enough time.

We made our way back to the Duomo area to meet up with the taxi and Lars & A disappeared for a few minutes, when they came back they had food and we weren't really hungry until we saw their food! We bugged them to show us where they got it and we headed over to a small pizza shop that had pizza, sandwiches and calzones. I got a piece of pepperoni pizza and the slice was huge! It was like a piece of 8-1/2 x 11 paper! I could not eat the whole thing and ended up throwing away some of it since we were a few minutes late getting to the taxi.

Some pictures....

More pictures from Florence...

We got in the taxi and headed to Pisa. We had a 3:40 pm climb time so we needed to check in 30 minutes prior and store our bags in the lockers 10 minutes prior. You can only climb with your camera and a bottle of water. We nixed the water and just took our cameras.

What a climb! It's almost 300 steps that are wore and you can feel the tilt while walking up them. They make the people coming up go out about 3/4 of the way up to what appears to be an observation deck...it reminded me of lighthouses I've climbed before.

After the people from the previous climb come down, you can continue the upwards climb. Just when you think you've gotten to the top, there's another 20 or so steps to actually get to the very top. The view from the top is beautiful. Robin's DH had to question the safety of the Tower while we were still up on the top of it! It was quite high. I did not know that the height was getting to Robin and my roomie, I thought it was the climb...it was a rough one. Robin was first on the way up and had taken off like a bat out of he.. when she started the climb and the rest of us followed instead of pacing ourselves

I took some pictures and met up with my group for our descent back down. The steps are spaced that it's too short for 2 steps and too large for 1, but if you kicked your foot out then you could get a rhythm. Of course Theresa, Robin and I were going down by this rhythm and got told by a guard to be quiet. Theresa was in front and passed on to be quiet, but Robin thought it was just Theresa saying it and not a guard so kept on talking and laughing It's amazing they didn't throw us out, but then again we were on our way down, so we were already leaving

Here are some pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the 3rd one really shows the lean.

Pictures from the Leaning Tower of Pisa...

More pictures...I know it's a lot of them, but I climbed to get them!

After our climb we headed to the Livorno Harley Davidson Dealership to get t-shirts for our DH's.

We went in and picked out our shirts then went to the counter and proceeded to wait, and wait, and wait for someone to come over to ring our purchases. I pulled out my credit card and that had no impact either. After 15 minutes of waiting and having people out in the taxi waiting for us, one saleswoman came over and said, in a minute in Italian and walked away...Theresa and I both looked at each other, then put our purchases back and walked out.

I'd have loved to complain, but I don't know that much Italian. I wrote to the Dealership back in July to get their hours. The gentleman who responded to my emails was so nice that I was truly dumbfounded that we just stood there for as long as we did. We weren't even told by the people who walked behind the counter than someone would be with us. It was like they didn't see us standing there

At any rate, we got back into the taxi for the short ride from the Dealership to the Ship. We paid the driver and got back onboard.

I have an email to write tomorrow , but our first port was a great day

Civitavecchia (Rome)

Lars' friend Adam was kind enough to get our BIRG tickets for us when he was in Rome so we already had our train tickets. BIRG tickets also cover the Metro, which we used in Rome. It did help us to use the Metro, it reduced the walking so we could walk while at the sites

We were up very early this day. We were one of the first groups of people off the ship, we were hoping to catch the early train to Rome and we were waiting for the free shuttle bus at the port to take us to the entrance. The walk to the train station took us 10 - 15 minutes after the shuttle dropped us off. Our plan was to take the train with everyone, then split up in Rome, and then meet up again with everyone at the station for the 4:09pm train back to Civitavecchia.

From the train station we hopped on the Metro to Spagna to see the Spanish Steps. We walked up the steps and then down the streets of Rome to find Trevi Fountain. We walked around a huge circle and missed a street because we ended up right down the street from the Spanish Steps My guide book map was not the greatest, unfortunately. It's very easy to get turned around with all the streets that run on angles.

Robin asked a policeman who didn't really speak English, but he said 50 meters down the road there was a street. There is a sign for Trevi Fountain if you're coming the opposite direction from the way we were We finally found it and WOW! What a Fountain, and a crowd. This is the one place in Rome that I was nervous to put my camera down to do a timer photo. I had visions of the camera disappearing since it was so crowded. I had also read to be very careful of pickpockets and pursesnatchers at Trevi Fountain, so we took our pictures and then moved away from the crowds to map our new route to the Crypt of the Capuchin Monks.

Here are some pictures of the Spanish Steps...