Having worked on Cartagena, Gibraltar and Marseille as part of our Mediterranean Cruise, I was ready to start looking at how were were going to spend our time in our italian ports – Genoa, Livorno and Civitavecchia.
Once again the question is – stay in the port or travel to other parts of Italy close by – all except the end of the cruise, we would need to see Rome. What were the “must sees” in case we didn’t get a chance to back – of course we will!
Starting with Genoa, we could take the time and go to Portofino or Cinque Terra. Genoa is another old city that we could explore. After much debate and search, I found a tour company that specialized in food and wine tours in that region of Italy. We decided on a walking food tour of Genoa with Tasting Tours (www.tastingtours.it). The tour guide will meet us at the cruise terminal in Genoa for our half day tour of this very old Italian port city – sights and flavors of Genoa.
Next port, Livorno. Here there was no question, we were going to get a ride to Florence and Pisa. After looking again at the cruise shore excursions I knew we had to do our own thing. We wanted to do our exploration at our pace and choose what we would see. I talked to a few tour companies to make our choice and picked Rome Private Excursions (www.romeprivateexcursions.com). We decided on a car service to Florence and a tour guide for 3 hours. After much discussion with Elisa and Claudia, we found out we would not be able to see quite as much as we hoped during our time in Florence and decided to concentrate on seeing The Duomo, Baptistery, and the Academy, with maybe a short walk on the Pointe Vecchio, lunch and one or two other famous spots. A short stop in Pisa, and then back to the ship. Florence is about 90 minutes from Livorno where the ship docks.
Our last stop and disembarkation was Civitavecchia. Although Civitavecchia is an old seaside town and may have interesting sites to see, we didn’t want to leave Italy without seeing a little of Rome. As we were were planning we decided… let’s spend an extra day in Rome. We would not be able to see enough in a day, so let’s make it a day and 3/4’s. Now with a little extra time to work with, and after all of the tours I found everywhere we were traveling, I wanted the tour in Rome to be different. Could I found a tour guide that was an architect? Yes.
After scouring the internet and reviewing many tour options in Rome I found www.Roma-Bella.com. The tours offered were led by a licensed architect. I planned roughly a day and 1/2 tour with Roma-Bella’s owner to take us on a whirlwind tour of the external city. We were going to try to see it all in a mere 36 hours. The Vatican, Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum, the fountains and Plazas…….and have time for lunches too. Sounded like a lot, but we were going to give it a try. When in Rome….
All of the plans were done, now just counting down the days to our adventure.