Life Through My Eyes

Today we arrived and docked in Livorno in the early morning. After grabbing a quick breakfast we headed off of the ship and got on one of the shuttle buses that would take us into Florence for the day.

Due to the number of photos taken throughout the day I have divided this post into 3 parts in order for the photos to load up more quickly. Please feel free to click on any photo to make it larger for a closer look.

Below is the Basilica Di Santa Croce. It is the burial place of many illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Enrico Fermi, Galileo, Ugo Foscolo, Guglielmo Marconi, Luigi Cherubini, Leon Battista Alberti, Vittorio Alfieri, Gioacchino Rossini, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Lorenzo Bartolini, Pier Antonio Micheli, Bartolomeo Cristofori, Giovanni Gentile, thus it is known also as the Temple of the Italian Glories

This public fountain is in front of Palazzo Cocchi-Serristor..a renaissance style palace in the Piazza Santa Croce. It presently houses offices of a regional council of Florence

Don't cage me in

Below is the Fountain Of Neptune in the Piazza Della Signoria

Below are photos of living art. The one directly below was amazing.

Of course there was cupid for Valentines Day

Below is an arched walkway that led to the Ponte Vecchio bridge

Below is the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge which spans the Arno River. It is the oldest bridge in Florence. There are many shops built on the bridge

Some of the structures that were on the Pont Vecchio bridge.

This wraps up part 1 of our day in Florence, Italy Part 2 will be posted soon.

Last night was a like a roller coaster on the ship. We ran into either a storm or a low front because the ship was plowing through some rough waves and heavy winds. We went to bed last night prepared to take our private tour into Rome. I woke up around 6:50AM and looked out of our balcony window. From what I could see it appeared that we were sailing away from Rome and the Italian coast. Due to the high winds, size of our ship, wind directions and the tightness of getting the ship through the harbor and into the pier the Captain after discussing all options with the NCL corporate folks it was decided that there was too much risk in trying to get into the port. Our ship spent the day cruising away from the coast of Italy for quite some time and then made a turn to head towards tomorrows port of call....Livorno...which we would go on an excursion to Florence. So what should have been a day in Rome turned out the be a sea day.
By 10AM the waves were at 15ft and the winds were blowing at 48 knots. At one point in time the winds were blowing at almost 62 knots.
Veronica and I made the most of this extra sea day and we mainly took it easy and relaxed all day.

Here are some photos of the rough seas that day and the direction that the ship took the night before and that day.