Viking Ocean: Western Mediterranean

Docked in Civitavecchia (Port of Rome) overnight but didn’t see anything but scenery on the way to the airport here. People who wanted to visit Rome could extend on the back end. Luggage out by 10 pm Tuesday night, people out of the room by 8 am Wednesday. Had a little breakfast then left for the airport in Rome at 8:45. Rome to Paris;,Paris to Detroit. Both uneventful flights!👏🏻 Airport pics: Lori opted out of the travel pics😂: Best part about connecting through Paris! (Deb found her favorite chocolate, Leonidas, in the Rome airport).  We all sprang for Premium Economy air. Air France on the way home. It’s the step between regular Economy and the First Class Pods. Very civilized! Champagne after boarding! Little wider seats but a bigger recline with foot rests, a little better to try to sleep. I succeeded, the rest, not so much. They watched some good movies though! Big Thank You to  Ms Max Patterson  who booked the cruises for us. So helpful in advising room class, d...

This grows in the city walls. When they bloom in June they’ll be capers ! And this again! LOL This map shows how close all the towns and villages we’ve visited in Tuscany are: Livorno, Pisa, Lucca, San Miniato and Vinci. No rain today!🎉👏🏻 Population of Pisa is 100,000 plus 50,000 students. On a busy day, as many as 500 buses may bring tourists here. Our guide estimated 200 buses today. We got good advice from Max Patterson  NOT to come in the summer if we could help it. Very hot and super crowded! The cathedral is 1000 years old. Only those who were baptized could enter…so they built another church next door for the baptisms.  Because 3 is a good number and of course a Catholic thing, (Holy Trinity, etc)  they built a third building: the Bell Tower.  The ground is very marshy here so there is a lot of water in the soil. As they were building the Bell Tower when they got to the 3rd floor it was already sinking. Over the years there were many engineering modificatio...

We are docked here in Livorno, in Tuscany. Mike and Lori braved a soggy walking tour of Lucca. Lori has the newest phone and best pictures! (Way to persevere Lori and Mike!☔️)  This was the name of the Tour Company.  A couple behind us on the bus said, “Trumpy tours….we can’t get away from him!”😂 Medieval walled city 4.5 km around and you can walk along the top. We did not! Rainy and slippery!  Composer Puccini is from Livorno. His house is behind the statue and is a museum now. They say it is a town of 100 churches (we only took a picture of this one) and that they are on every corner. Not sure if we saw one on EVERY corner though. Oval courtyard called Piazza Anfiteatro where they have many concerts in the summer and has many restaurants. Rain made it not so much fun to walk the very narrow streets. We had wet feet/shoes/socks, coats, shirts….yuck! Docked here in Livorno: Technical info from Dave Scroggie: The boat in the foreground is called  The Black Pearl . (A...

Scroggies and Seegers have left us on our own again.,,, Pouring rain today, we had second thoughts about taking this excursion, but no refunds at this point, Viking provides giant umbrellas and there was wine involved, so we decided to🤞. Really glad we went! First stop, small village of San Miniato. Just a light rain but lots of construction in the town and little cars zooming all around so we opted to wait it out in a lovely wine bar that also had hot chocolate. Gotta love it here, it’s a lot like warm chocolate pudding. The bathroom was so cute! (And we have this sink at home!) Then on to Villa Dianella winery: We had a tour and 4-course wine-tasting/food pairing. I only remembered to take pictures of the appetizer course, then it’s all a blur… Everything delicious, interesting table mates (2 grew up in Michigan). Rose’ with salami Bruschetta Cabernet Sauvignon with pasta with parmigiana and pepper Chianti Classico with veal pizzaiola  Dolci Ricordi (dessert wine) with biscotti ...