This is a strange sort of stop \u2014 the port of Livorno is itself nothing to write home about, but provides access with a reasonable drive time to destinations as far as Florence and, in fact, the cruise-sponsored tour buses lined up and waiting for their passengers seemed far more numerous than the prior days, though, at the same time, the prices charged by the ship even for something as simple as \u201cX on your own\u201d were quite high.\u00a0 At the same time, we weren\u2019t entirely certain what we wanted to do, but knew that it started with taking the cruise ship\u2019s shuttle bus (for which they actually charged EUR 5) to the main plaza in the city, figuring from there we\u2019d play it by ear, and be prepared to, from there, walk or take the bus to the train station and see what trains were running when.\u00a0 (If we\u2019d had wifi this would have been a lot easier.)\u00a0 And when we got off the bus, there was a crew waving signs advertising trips, but, unlike the somewhat shady-looking people at other stops, these folks operated out of the tourist office with trips to the major destinations, in particular, offering our hoped-for trip out to Lucca, which we\u2019d never seen before, with a side trip out to Pisa; the trip included 3 hours in Lucca and 1\/2 hours in Pisa, at a decent price, with the only inconvenience being that it was 9:30 when we arrived in Livorno and the bus didn\u2019t leave until 10:30, but it was fine to kill time for an hour.<\/span><\/p>\n The Pisa leg was first.\u00a0 The company \u2014 Tuscanybus.com \u2014 was fairly professional and the guide (who didn\u2019t lead us around with her flag) gave us some instructions and a brochure with a map, and guided us partway to \u201cMiracle Square,\u201d where we took all the silly pictures, found the \u201crecycled\u201d marble that I had remembered from our prior trip over 10 years ago, and then, when the ticket to the Duomo was free but timed for after our bus departure (if you bought a ticket to one of the paid sites, like the baptistry, the Duomo was without a specified time, but we were kind of cheap, and hoped that they would let us in earlier than the specified time, which they didn\u2019t), after we tired of looking around, we walked around the main drag, got some gelato, and made our way back to the bus.<\/span><\/p>\n Then we headed on to Lucca.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t really do much here \u2014 we had lunch, we ate gelato, we walked around and absorbed the quieter, more relaxed atmosphere.\u00a0 We visited a church.\u00a0 We looked at Lucca\u2019s own Roman amphitheater-turned-shops in which you really can\u2019t see much that remains except the oval shape and, if you use your imagination, some of the bricks where the plaster has fallen off, plus an interior of a restaurant there.\u00a0 Part of the draw of Lucca in the guidebook description is its existing city wall, but it\u2019s not like Nordlingen or Rothenburg o.d. Tauber with ramparts and so forth; it\u2019s more like just a berm surrounding the city upon which you can walk or bike.\u00a0 And from Lucca, the bus took us (since we were all on a single cruise line) directly back to the ship.\u00a0 All in all, it was more than satisfactory for a day approached with \u201cwe\u2019ll see what we can figure out,\u201d and that night we enjoyed looking at the price sheet for cruise-line sponsored excursion to gawk at how expensive our trip would have been if booked through them.<\/span><\/p>\n In the evening, we celebrated my \u201cFacebook birthday\u201d because, yes, I did not want my real birthday to be available in Facebook\u2019s data, by going to the fancier of the two free main restaurants.\u00a0 And then we packed, which was a bit challenging logistically, as suitcases get picked up that very night, so you have to think through what stays out \u2019til the next day and how we subsequently pack that up.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Day 13:\u00a0 Livorno. This is a strange sort of stop \u2014 the port of Livorno is itself nothing to write home about, but provides access with a reasonable drive time to destinations as far as Florence and, in fact, the cruise-sponsored tour buses lined up and waiting for their passengers seemed far more numerous than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2019\/07\/IMG_1298-1024x768.jpg\")
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