France Revisited

We spent 2 more days in Cannes.  I could have not visited that port again and been totally ok.  On the first cruise we spent 2 days in Monaco and we did a few things in Cannes.  Don’t get me wrong it’s beautiful there just not much to do there.  We did tours both days while we were there the first day was much better than the second day.  The first day we went to Eze which is an old medieval village.  We didn’t have much time there that day.  Then we went to Monaco and we got to go inside the Grand Casino.  It’s actually quite small inside but it’s beautiful in there.  The next day we did a half day tour each of us had our own tour again but we didn’t get to see each other all day.  We went to Nice and saw the highlights.  We had some free time in Nice and as I was wandering around searching for Char some yucky stinky French man hit on me.  I was happy when that tour was over.

The next day we went back to Florence.  We just escorted the transfer in and we spent the day shopping.  This was our second time in Florence and we planned on doing some shopping and shopping we did.  We also found a little Italian restaurant and had bruschetta and pizza.  I have to say it was the best bruschetta I’ve ever had.  The first time we were in Florence it was really hot and tons of tourists.  When we were there the other day it was just right.  We were going to go and see The David but we couldn’t get our tickets ahead of time because the operators were on strike the day we were there and wouldn’t sell us tickets.  We decided we’d rather shop then wait in line to see The David.  Besides from what we understand no “real” men look like that anyway why torture ourselves.

Then we were off to Rome.  Char had already been there so she let me decide what we were going to do.  We took the transfer into Rome so we could spend the day doing whatever we wanted.  It is an hour and a half bus ride from the port so by the time we got there we only had about 5 hours so there really was only time to do one big thing.  I had been debating for a week between going to the Vatican or the Coliseum.  I finally settled on going to the Vatican.  We thought we’d be super smart and get our tickets online and skip the lines.  We spent $50 on our tickets and thought piece of cake.  Well that’s what we get for thinking.  We had to be there at 10:25 to get our tickets and if we were late no tickets for us and no refund.  Well we didn’t leave the port until about 9:30 and of course someone on the bus couldn’t wait the 90 minutes to use the rest room so we had to make a pit stop.  Needless to say we didn’t make it by 10:25.  Lucky for us by the time we made it to the Vatican by 11 there was no line so we got right in and paid another 15 euro to get in.  We had quite the expensive day at the Vatican.  It was beautiful though.  I’m not at all disappointed with the choice I made or with the amount of money I ended up spending to get in.  We spent about 2 hours there.  It’s so overwhelming it’s almost overload for the eyes.  There is art floor to ceiling.  The Sistine Chapel was breath taking.  I was a little disturbed by the lack of respect that people showed.  They have no pews in there but there is a bench along both sides so you can sit and enjoy it.  It was crowded because there were tons of people there and I was shocked that people just came in and felt like it was ok to sit on the floor.  The guards had to keep telling people to get up and to be quiet.  After we went to the Vatican we went to St. Peter’s Basilica.  That was also amazing.  It wasn’t as crowded in Rome.  I think we had good timing because everyone was just getting done with their Holiday as they call it in Europe.  After that we found a nice restaurant and had lunch.  We spent about half our bill on diet coke and water I still can’t get over having to pay for water at a restaurant.  The waiter at the restaurant was so enthralled with Char that he felt the need to write her a love letter.  We got a kick out of that.  We seem to be attracting on sleazy European men through no fault of our own.  What can I say when you’ve got it you’ve got it.

Today we are off to Pompeii.  I’m really excited about this tour.  This is our last tour that we are escorting and I’m so very happy with that.  We were supposed to leave at 7:45 this morning but we are late getting into port by about an hour and 45 minutes so here I sit blogging.  I’m about done with tourists and rude people and as much fun as I’m having and enjoying my time here I’m just about ready to come home.