Livorno and Firenze We're actually at sea heading for Bergen in Norway so I'm using the time to catch up a bit. In Livorno, or Leghorn as the English call it, we took a bus to Florence. In retrospect, we should have followed the pattern we'd set and explored the countryside, but for some reason we didn't. The trip to Florence took about an hour. We'd expected to be dropped off in a central position and were going to look around by ourselves. Instead, we we...

Civitavecchia. Today we chose not to visit Rome as we've been there before and there are many beautiful places in the countryside that are just as valid to visit as the cities. We did the usual bargaining on the dock with the usual eager assortment of taxi drivers and settled on a price for a 4 hour trip to Lake Bracciano. Things are much dearer in Europe than we'd grown accustomed to on our travels so far. The euro doesn't seem to go anywhere. Our ...

Ciao from Italy. I've been busy and have fallen behind so I'll skip a few ports and catch up later. I'm sitting on the deck in Civitavecchia, the closest port to Rome. Yesterday we were in Napoli. What a wonderful day! We went on a ship's tour that Patricia had chosen. It took us to the Amalfi coast and Pompeii. Off in the coach we went with our numbers stuck to our chests so we wouldn't get lost. I hate having to wear numbers so I always lose ...