Pisa Pisa

---

Geo: 43.7161, 10.3966

Our plan today was to do what Kamie & I do best together – go out on our own and take the public buses and trains to get where we want to go and see what we want to see. Today we took a shuttle… to a bus… to another bus (our mistake for listening to two well-meaning Aussies)….to the train station….where we took a train to Pisa…and a bus… to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was a lot easier than it sounds and the total transportation costs for the day for 2 was 26 Euros versus a minimum tour cost of 120 Euros. And I have to say… as we saw some of our friends leaving on a tour bus… l felt so sorry for them. Traveling on your own is freeing.

Today we had a fun day going-out on our own, taking silly pictures at the leaning tower, watching others take silly pictures, and then we did a little bit of shopping. There were no benches anywhere near the shopping street so Kamie got tired. I was looking for a handbag today so I did not realize how quickly time had passed so I did feel bad for him. I did not find a purse I liked. L We slowly made our way back to port and had our last piece of Italian pizza today. We have no idea what they do that makes the cheese taste the way it does but it's delish!

Our Cruise Director had announced at the beginning of the cruise that he guaranteed someone will miss the boat in some port on every European cruise. He said people go out on their own and miss trains & buses & etc and they end-up being left in port. There have been some very close calls this cruise with the boat waiting up to an hour or more for late arrivals but today, we finally left a couple in the port of Livorno. Who knows what they did – read the train schedules wrong, got stuck in a traffic jam in a taxi, etc… but they did not show-up at the port and are now in Italy and our ship is on its way to France. The boat waited until nearly 7:30pm for the two missing people. Unfortunately, they probably missed their train from Florence to Livorno and it's an hour and a half to get to the port, minimum, from Florence… which is why we did not go to Florence today, I just didn't want to risk missing the boat. Good decision because our day in Pisa was beautiful!

---