Friday June 10

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Gday all
Hello from Toulon, France and now from Livorno, Italy gateway to Pisa and Florence
Well it has been a while since our last posting.

You will also notice that there are no pictures with this post.

At 75 cents a minute for internet connection it would cost a fortune to upload them. We will load them when we get back to England on the 18th.

Now to the blog

On the morning we picked up the boat I had to drop off our rental car and while doing this I met a couple that had just got off the boat and while chatting they said the first thing we will notice is the food. Well that is an understatement. Everywhere you go is either a bar or restaurant

The Celebrity Eclipse is a magnificent boat and huge. We are on deck 11 with a balcony so the view when we get near land is great.

We got on board at about 11.30am which gave us a few hours to explore the ship until our cabin was ready and we left Southampton about 4.30 on Saturday night with a few other cruise ships.

Sunday and Monday were sailing days where we just really lazed about looking at some of the ship’s activities which include a Crown Corning Glass show, watching the artists make art glass. Very talented people. Also on Sunday we went to one of the 3 specialty restaurants. Qsine, a unique way of doing things. We had an iPad for our menu so we picked our courses at random and also all the plates are sharing plates and there are 20 sections to the menu. We did what everyone else does and had 6….lol. On Monday was the first formal night of the cruise where we went to our assigned restaurant, Blu. As usual the meal was fantastic.
Because we upgraded to Aqua class we were able to access the spa treatments. Jules has so far had 3 different massages, Hot Rocks, a Swedish massage and Reflexology, and is due to have a facial on her birthday. Myself, I have had 2 shaves and am also due to have another on Jules birthday (please don’t tell anyone but my shaves also involved facials).

Tuesday we cancelled the day

Wednesday was another sailing day and another specialty restaurant, The Tuscan Grill. An Italian restaurant where, you guessed it, the food was great. Here it is a set 4 course menu but we couldn’t finish so they invited us back anytime on the cruise to finish.

Thursday, we took the shuttle bus into Toulon and walked around the market and went for a little tour of the town.

Today, Friday, we went on one of our excursions to Pisa. The bus ride from Livorno is about 30 minutes even though Pisa used to be the Port about 1000 years ago but the sea silted up and land was reclaimed. So the land around Pisa is very soft and this is the major reason the Tower leans so much. It is not only the tower that leans though. In the Plaza of Miracles there is the Tower of course but also the Cathedral , The Baptistery and the Monumental Cemetery, and they all lean, not to the extent of the tower though.

And yes we did try the whole holding up picture but we haven’t uploaded any pictures yet so we don’t really know how it’s going to come out.

Well that’s a general update so far. As I said we will load pictures when we get back to ‘Ol Blighty.

All our love

Mark and Jules

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Comments

[joyce]

so glad ur enjoying yourselfs hope the rest is just as good lots of love to u both xxx moving tomorrow 11th