Day 7: Florence

The seventh day of our cruise brought us to the port of "La Spezia" on the coast of Italy.  This is the port from which we made our journey up into the Tuscany region of Italy to the city of Florence.  Jason created our magnet for this day with a picture of a very famous covered bridge in Florence (called Ponte Vecchio) with Mickey on a gondola boat (we know that's really more Venice...but we thought it looked good on the magnet and it was, at least, Italian! LOL).  Keep a lookout later in this post because Jason and I were able to visit this very bridge and take some pictures...it was nice to once again see the images we pulled off the internet for our door magnets in real life.

We had to drive quite a ways to get to Florence from the port, but our tour guide Samuelo filled part of the time with some information about what we'd be doing that day and the rest of the time he let us just chill on the bus----a nice time when some of our fellow Adventurers napped (after all it was a long day the day prior in Rome and another early morning for this adventure)....and Jason and I spent time visiting with our new friends, Trish & Ben, who were also in the Adventures by Disney group (....just for the record...for those of you who think Jason and I are crazy for taking such a long vacation....get this........

......Trish and Ben did the 11-night Mediterranean cruise before this one, then the 10-night we were all on together, then they were, just like us, staying on for the 14-night TransAtlantic cruise AND once they get back to Florida they are getting of the Disney Magic and transferring over onto the other Disney ship, the Disney Wonder, for a 5-night cruise!!  So they are spending a total of 40 nights on the Disney boats----they're calling it their "Noah's Ark" cruise! LOL....we're so jealous!! LOL)

Our day in Florence was the beginning of a few days that were a lot less intense---we kind of peaked in terms of packing a ton into one day with Rome---and now we were starting to slow down a bit as we move towards the end of our adventure.  On our agenda for Florence was simply the ride up there, visiting the museum where Michelangelo's famous statue, "David," a quick walking tour of Florence and then lunch and an afternoon on our own (this was time given to folks because the shopping in Florence is supposed to be truly incredible (lots of high end shops and boutiques).  This time to shop was pretty much lost on me and Jason since the only thing we really wanted was a magnet or two...LOL.  Anyhow, because our Florence day wasn't so jam packed, I'll just give a run down of what we did and post some images of things we did and saw.....

Here is what we woke up to coming into the port:

...and the ride from the port to Florence was nice.  Here are a few pics we took along the way.....I've determined that there might be no part of Italy (or certainly no part that we saw with Disney) that is ugly LOL:

Once we got off the bus, we made our way directly to the museum where Michelangelo's David is housed.  Again the lines were really long (although certainly not as long and crazy as those we saw at Vatican City the day prior).  There were lots of tour groups vying for the chance to get into the museum, but our guide, Samuelo, was the most aggressive of the bunch and he got us in pretty quickly (....and when another tour guide tried to cut in front of our group with hers he jumped into action and nipped that in the bud REAL quick!! It was kind of amusing, actually, because he still had the microphone to our radio receivers on while he was arguing with her and the guard at the door in Italian....I didn't understand a word he was say....and yet I understand it completely! LOL....I think, to paraphrase, it was something along the lines of "Step off, sweetie!" LOL).  Anyhow, we were quickly filed into the museum which, although it does have galleries of a few other things like some unfinished statues of Michelangelo's and some other artwork, the entire building is largely a place to see the "David."  No form of photography is allowed at all, so here is a picture I pulled off the internet (as if anyone needs to see a picture to know what I'm talking about....Samuelo assured us that this is one of the most recognizable pieces of art on the planet):

Anyhow, I have to admit...I went in interested to see "David" since it's such a famous sculpture, but also thinking....it's just a sculpture....but I must confess that it's exquisite.  It's a great deal bigger than I expected it to be and the level of detail & knowledge that our guide shared with us about the statue made it all the more interesting...talking a great deal about its history and the way it was created and why it was sculpted the way it is...and how the statue becomes a "different" statue from various different angles.  It's clear when you see it in person why this statue is such a valued and treasured piece in the art world. (And, ironically, it too has an interesting story in its history----as, much like the Pieta in Rome, it was attacked with weapon by a crazy person and damaged!  It would appear there is a lot of human on statue violence in Italy!! LOL)

After leaving the museum (following a quick stop in the gift shop for a magnet), we embarked on a walking tour of the city.  Our guide pointed out a number of sights around the city like the city square,  the Ponte Vecchio (the covered bridge on our magnet of the day....although we stood ON the bridge on this part of the tour so didn't get a chance to see the view from our magnet until our free time later in the day), a huge ornate cathedral (which boasts, apparently, the largest dome ceiling in the world, according to our guide) and another town square filled with statues and a fountain.  Here are some of the prettier sights we saw on our walking tour of Florence:

During our tour we made a stop at "the best Gelato store in Italy" (or so it was deemed by both our tour guide and our Adventure Guides, Robyn and Tina).  There, we not only ate the gelato, but we got to listen to the owner of the shop talk a bit about how it's made and see it come direct from the machine and have a free taste before we had our free cone (dessert BEFORE lunch!! LOL).  The gelato there was, indeed, the best we'd had...I had a lovely chocolate with hazelnuts (that I believe was called "bacio").....it was so good that later in the afternoon during our free time.....we came back and got more! LOL

Our walk also brought us to the little cafe/restaurant where we would eat our lunch.  I don't have any pictures from our lunch...but it was very nice.  They served the most delicious bruschetta and I had a pizza (the other options were all meat dishes I wouldn't eat).

After lunch was free time....as I said, this was for shopping.  However, Jason and I were not interested in shopping for nearly 3 hours so we were trying to figure out what to do.  Luckily, Trisha and Ben didn't want to shop either----so we spent a lovely afternoon sightseeing with them.

The first thing we did was walk back over to se the Ponte Vecchio (the bridge) and take pictures of it from the same angle as our magnet.  It's very pretty....here are some pics (compare them to our magnet at the top of this post and you'll see!!):

After that we walked back to the square where there had been all those statues to get a better look and spend some time (on our first visit there earlier in the day we'd only been for about 5 minutes).  Plus, there was a life size replica of the "David" in that square and we wanted to take this picture with it (since no pictures were allowed with the REAL "David")----and here.you can see the scale of the statue----if we were to climb up onto the base our faces would probably just about reach his belly button (.....and while I am thinking about that, I should mention, too, that there is quite a fascination in Florence with David's genitals----you can buy any souvenir you want....magnets, postcards, pictures, even boxer shorts and PASTA in the shape of his genitals.....it was a bit disarming to walk the streets of one of the oldest and fanciest cities in Italy and be surrounded by penises!! LOL):

We then made a stop to a sight we'd seen on our walking tour earlier but hadn't been allowed to go and visit....a large brass (or bronze??) boar statue & fountain that had a very similar mythos around it as the Trevi fountain in Rome----touching the boar is good luck (you can even see how polished his nose is from all the touching/rubbing it gets everyday)....and putting a coin in its mouth and letting it slide off its tongue into the fountain grate below guarantees you will one day return to Florence.  The four of us went over and rubbed its snout and put in our coin:

We still had time to kill and so we thought a nice way to see other parts of Florence would be in a horse drawn carriage....it wasn't that costly split 4 ways with Trisha and Ben...and it really was lovely:

All that buggy riding worked up an appetite for something sweet...so we made our way back to the ice cream shop we'd visited earlier and got more ice cream (hehehe).  Here is a pic of the two of us with Ben outside the shop:

By the time we were done with our little snack, we had enough time to take a leisurely walk back to our meeting point, get a magnet along the way and stop for a moment to watch this really talented sidewalk artist (we'd actually passed him about an hour and half earlier when he was just starting his drawing, too):

The it was off and back to the ship! It was actually a much nicer day than I expected (when they'd told us we'd have so much free time to shop I expected I'd be somewhat bored or out of sorts not knowing what to do....and was very afraid we'd get lost).  I will say that my only disappointment with our day in Florence was that we didn't get to experience Pisa and see the leaning tower.  Jason and I would have been happy to cut off the shopping and instead take the "long way" back to the ship to at least get pictures of the tower....but even still we made the best of our time in Florence and enjoyed our afternoon with Ben and Trisha thoroughly!

When we arrived back at the ship there was, of course, a towel animal:

Tonight for dinner, however, there were no ties....because it was PIRATE NIGHT!!!  We, and many of our fellow cruisers, donned our pirate costumes for dinner and for a fabulous on deck dance party with a pirate theme....and closing with fireworks (for those of you who haven't cruised with Disney, they are the ONLY cruise line in the world allowed to do fireworks at sea and it's always a great treat!).  Here are some pics of us all pirated out:

(Note:  That last pic is a picture of me and two of our fabulous table mates, Johanna and Kimberly, dancing together on the deck at the party)

AAAH....Florence was lovely...and actually relaxing...and the pirate party was a nice cap to the day....and then we were off to bed to get up tomorrow and head to Ajaccio and Corsica!