A Symphony in Florence: May 21-28, 7 Night Mediterranean Cruise; Barcelona to Barcelona, Recap

[She Sails Away]

Hi, all!
Just back from a three-week long adventure---a two week Transatlantic (other cruise line), followed immediately with a week on Symphony.

My dates were May 21-May 28.

 

I met my son in Barcelona, we did a little sightseeing and spent the night there, and then boarded Symphony the next day.

 

It was a fabulous cruise and I thought I'd share a few tips, insights, photos, for those going on this cruise in the future.

 

Side note, on my Transatlantic, I picked up what I think was norovirus. YIKES. I was SO SICK. Good grief. Fortunately, I was on the mend when we reached Symphony, but I barely ate the first few days.

So here we go on my recap:

 

 

 

[She Sails Away]

First of all, thoughts on Symphony:

She was fabulous! What's not to love? Absolutely gorgeous.

 

Boarding day was perhaps the smoothest I've ever seen....we got out of the cab and never stopped walking (hardly) until we were on the ship at eleven am. Easy-peasy.

 

The ship is shiny and still looks brand new. Soooo much space.  It was a full sailing--I didn't get the numbers, but it felt full, for what that's worth.  A big mix of international crowds--I heard lots of Italian, French, and German on board, and spoke to several folks from Ireland and Scotland. Plenty of Americans, as well. Lots of families aboard.

 

We left Barcelona very late. The captain eventually announced that they had a medical emergency and were waiting on an ambulance, which was expected in about twenty minutes. I was wondering why on earth an ambulance would take twenty minutes to get there, when the "alpha" call went out from the pool deck for another emergency. 

My son was walking by when that one happened and said someone had fainted. But they seemed okay when they came to, and were sitting up and getting medical help.

 

In any case, it was about three hours later before we actually left. I hope everyone was okay.

 

So here are some general thoughts on the ship:

Pool deck--spotless. Crowded, of course....forget wandering into the solarium and finding two chairs together. Those things get claimed earrrrrly in the morning. ALL of the hot tubs stay full, naturally. But still....plenty of lounge chairs and nice places to hang out for everyone.

 

You need a reservation to have any meal at all at Solarium bistro. I went into my app within minutes of boarding and they were all gone. Oh well.  I checked a few times during the week and nothing opened up.

 

I was given the opportunity ahead of cruise to make show reservations and a reservation for the Rubicon/escape room, so I did all that before we boarded.

 

My cabin was a boardwalk balcony, deck 8. I was near the aft with a view of the Aqua theater (and Abyss.) That was fun. It was fun to see the Johnny Rockets waiters do their dancing, see the silent disco party one night, and hear the thundering music from the Aqua show several times during the week.

 

The boardwalk  was lively and hopping, but never overrun. We walked up to Playmakers twice to eat and had no trouble getting a table.

 

Dazzles is beautiful, they have a lovely card room on deck 14, and overall, everything is just so PRETTY.  The promenade stayed busy all week.

 

The Rubicon escape room was fun-but hard! Get a good group and really work at it. That hour flew by and we did not solve it.

 

[She Sails Away]

as far as entertainment:

We saw two separate ice skating shows: "1977, a thrilling adventure on ice." And later in the week, "iskate 2.0."  Both shows were wonderful--incredible, so fun. The "1977" show opened with some drones coming out in the dark, unlit, over the ice...and then the show started when music exploded and the drones came on and swam around in pinks and yellows to "miles and miles." So good. The skating was fun and lively, and the "I-skate 2.0" was every bit as fun.

 

For theater shows, they had "Hairspray" and "Flight...dare to dream."  Both were WONDERFUL. I had never seen either and for some reason, didn't think I'd like Hairspray. I loved it! I wish we had gone twice! Both shows were just as good as you could ask for, with really great colorful sets and costumes and such high-energy and talented cast. I won't spoil the end of "Flight," But sit in the middle of the audience and have your camera ready.  (And I'm not referring to the photo I shared.)

 

Aqua Theater: Two shows shown MULTIPLE times all week. Plus, if you happened to be wandering Boardwalk at the right time, you could catch the cast rehearsing for a new show. We saw HIRO, which was very energetic and inspiring and awesome. Then we saw a whole other show, which I don't remember the title of. And it's not listed in the sheet of paper I brought home, listing all of the shows. But it was a full blown show and it was great fun. Both of them included a 'flying woman,' a young woman who puts on a really tight waist harness and then goes flying all over the place on a series of cables, over the audience and pool. Wow.

 

Other stuff: Comedians! There were two...Gary Cauette and Dylan Mandisohn. I didn't go to either, and heard that one was funny, one was not.

 

They had the Love and Marriage game show on our last night there, and they had a magician who performed two different nights. Wonderful!

 

 

 

 

abyss 4.HEIC abyss night.HEIC

[She Sails Away]

Food:
Windjammer was as expected...hit or miss. Tons of variety, food mostly just so-so, but lots of it. Crowds were as expected---thick on excursion mornings, scattered other times. They did have very long hours depending on what we were doing in port, so that was helpful.

Food in Main Dining was terrific. I have heard so much bad stuff I was prepared for something awful.   But we found the food to be great, hot, creative, satisfying, and just right. Service was outstanding.

 

Izumi: My son ate there and LOVED it.

 

150 Central Park. We ate here for the first time--pricey, but special. Heavy on the ambience and service....a bit slight on menu selection, but if you drink, wow. TONS of choices there. I had the "cauliflower steak," which turned out to be an entire head of cauliflower...and the host was actually disappointed I didn't eat the entire thing. (Who can eat a whole head of cauliflower, I wonder?) Here's the thing--it really tasted like steak. They had it roasted with different oils and spices, it came with a cream sauce and cranberries--a lot of stuff going on that added up to "Wow, this is way better than I thought it would be."  My son had some really rare steak, we had appetizers, he had the fried cheesecake and I had a hazelnut thing---all of it was SUPER.  The host did apply pressure to us to be sure and give them a good review--not a big deal, just something I am sharing here.

 

Sugar Beach--I bought a bag of chocolate covered pretzels here and immediately threw them away. They had been there a WHILE. A LONG while. It was like leather. My son tried one and agreed. Ick.

 

Cafe Promenade had all the usual yummy snacks. We also hit the juice bar in the spa several times and had juices and Starbucks. Great stuff. 

 

Food at Playmakers (Poke nachos) was super....we had the Campfire Cookie twice!

food 8 pmakers.HEIC food 9 Pmakers.HEIC food 11 france.HEIC

[She Sails Away]

Port stops:

We stopped in Palma de Mallorca, Marseilles France, Florence, and Rome, and Naples.

Palma: We walked around on our own and immediately discovered their cathedral. Took lots of photos, admired the views, shopped the shops, and wandered the part of town behind the cathedral that felt very old-world. (Even with a Starbucks in the middle.) Lots of horsedrawn carriage rides available, bakeries, cafes, gelato, souvenirs. We had a fun day and came back to the ship after a few hours.

 

Marseilles: We wandered on our own again--lots and lots of walking with that day. We toured the striped cathedral (incredible!) and then walked and walked the waterfront. It was hot and we discovered (to no one's surprise) that public restrooms were few and far between. We had to walk to a mall and produce a euro coin to get into the restroom there. Some gelato and french pastries, lunch on the water, and then back to the ship.

 

Florence: We booked an all-day tour through the ship to go to Florence. What a great day. Long bus ride--almost two hours. We stopped halfway at a gas station for a restroom break and my son grabbed us two Red Bulls to keep us going, because we were dragging. Florence was spectacular--no other way to put it. Jammed as jammed could be with fellow tourists, but we expected that. We had booked the tour that took us to the art museum where The David is, then lunch, then a walking tour of the city.

 

Even though we had tickets with a timed reservation, the guide warned us that we'd wait a long time and be in a mob, and we were. Of course it was worth the mob to see The David---just breathtaking. The rest of the art in the museum was spectacular, as well.

We were at the museum an hour or more, then the guide led us around town and explained to us what we were looking at. The Duomo is beyond description, and pictures don't come close. The city was bustling and fascinating and swimming in sculptures and old world ambience and architecture. Lunch was at a cafe, we were served spaghetti, bread, and biscotti. There was also wine for those who wanted it. Honestly, I found the food to be sorely lacking, and I am not a foodie in the least. But it served the purpose. After lunch, we continued our walking tour, taking in the bridge, more buildings, more of everything. We were given almost an hour on our own. We were encouraged to go into a specific leather store and see a demo and of course, buy stuff. We skipped that and got gelato by Neptune's Fountain, shopped around, and took more pictures. We returned to the bus just as it started to rain. We made the restroom stop halfway back, then returned to the ship about seven pm. Our guide was just amazing and did such a good job keeping the group together (we had a couple of stragglers) and keeping us informed. But it was hours of being on your feet, so keep that in mind. 

 

Rome: We did another all-day tour (10+ hours) through the ship. It was called something like "The Eternal City, Small group tour." And it was definitely the highlight of our trip. We made the two hour bus ride into Rome (bathroom break forty minutes into the trip). We went straight to Vatican City and began an hours-long walking tour of the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, and the Basilica of St. Peter church. IN-CREDIBLE. Just life-changing, really. So many things to see in that church. 

To sum up as quickly as possible our morning: We walked through the Vatican Museum for almost an hour. And I do mean that we walked. There was no lingering, no stopping to read anything or take pictures--you walked along steadily and that was that. The place was shoulder to shoulder the entire time and we had to stay close to our guide so as not to get lost among the hundreds of other people and tour groups. Our guide carried a small pole with a red ribbon on it… Along with half of the other guides in the building.  So it was easy to lose sight of her. We did have ear pieces and she kept us informed of what we were looking at the whole time. This was priceless, as otherwise, the morning would have been a senseless blur of paintings and tapestries. This part took about an hour.

 

As we approached the Sistine Chapel, our guide warned us NOT to lose her. And not to go out a wrong exit or wander off, she'd never find us. She stressed to us to stay close.

So we get pushed into the Sistine Chapel and it was like a can of moving sardines in there. I mean---way more than shoulder to shoulder--we were JAMMED into a mass of bodies all moving at different speeds, with security waving us along and telling us not to stop walking. if you are claustrophobic, this is not the tour for you. It was most definitely a crush. I turned my head to look back at the painting on one wall, got a quick glimpse, and turned back----and my entire group was GONE. I panicked, searched everywhere--couldn't find them. My son had been beside me, he was gone. I tried to stop and look around, backtrack, but security all but shouted at me to keep walking. I was shoved out of the chapel within minutes, searching for my group, and I have to say, I never got one single good look at the painting on the ceiling. 

 

Outside the chapel, I waited and waited for my group to pass. I texted my son. He didn't answer. No one came. I started walking, but the hallway led to an exit to the outdoors. I saw sunlight and stopped. I finally just leaned against a wall and waited and eventually my son texted and told me to stay there, and after a while, my tour group came by and I joined them. Whew.

But I was more than sad that I missed the chapel so badly. Lesson learned. Hang onto your people physically, walk slowly as possible ,and look and look. You can't take pictures, but you can look much more than I did, I'm sure!

 

Outside, we looked around the courtyard, then went into St Peters. For those of you who care about things like bathroom breaks, let me just mention were going on three hours now with no bathroom break available. And we'd been on our feet that whole time, too, so keep that in mind. If you have trouble walking or find standing painful, this is NOT the particular tour for you. In fact, they made it clear in the description that this was not accessible and that we'd be walking "three miles" in total.

 

We toured the church---just astounding. So overwhelming. Opulent, historic, massive, humbling and inspiring. So great.

 

Then we hit the 'official' Vatican gift shop, where everything--even shot glasses and T-shirts--had been blessed.

Then it was on to a nearby cafe for our lunch. (And restroom.) We ate outside at tables for two or four, and it was lovely. Some musicians came and played for us---all American songs, ironically, but on an accordion, so that was just lovely. They played Somewhere Over the Rainbow, I did it My Way, and songs like that. They came around with a cup afterwards, asking for donations. 

We were also approached several times as we ate by people begging for money--I mean that literally, and by people selling things.  

The food was terrific--wonderful baked ziti, a salad, turkey with gravy, wine was available, and we had tiramisu for dessert. 

 

I am attaching pictures but I am just now discovering these are not normal jpegs, and I have no idea what's wrong with them, so I apologize. ETA: I found some jpegs on my phone, so I'm adding those. But I don't understand this HEIC thing and I'm worried the majority of my photos are messed up. Because I am finding only some of my photos, they're all out of order and jumbled. Sorry!

To be continued.

 

 

[She Sails Away]

Continuing on with our day in Rome. While we ate lunch we saw two priests and a Cardinal walk by, which sounds like the lead up to a joke, but it was pretty cool.

 

After lunch we went back to the bus and went to the Colosseum. We got off there and began about two hours more of walking and looking. Our guide explained a lot of history to us about the Colosseum, it was very interesting, all that she told us, and it helped that she passed around illustrations of what it looked like back then. 

She warned us that she recognized two women who were.....she didn't finish the sentence, she just abruptly said "Everyone hang onto your belongings tightly."

 

After a while looking at the Colosseum and hearing stories, we began walking through the Roman Forum, which was block after block of crumbing ruins and fallen pillars, and so much of it was just amazing. It made all the difference to hear the guide tell us what we were looking at, of course. So amazing. So much history--and to look at it while she is telling us who was murdered there (for example) was something else.

One couple left us at this point because the walking was just too much. And it was hot. And there are no benches or any places to just pull out and sit down for a quick minute. None. But we continued on for a long time, soaking it in, taking pictures. Then we had a frantic restroom stop at a few different gelato shops--which was a disaster because the bathroom was barely functioning and could only take one person at a time, you had to buy something and I didn't have quite enough euros, etc. We were pretty much on our own to figure it out and get that restroom break in, then we walked about thirty minutes more back to the bus. We boarded just as it began to rain. I looked at my watch and we had walked over five miles.

But it wasn't just the walking--we spent about eight hours or so on our feet that day. So keep that in mind, if you are considering this tour. It was OUT OF THE QUESTION to sit down if you needed to, there was simply no place to do it. No benches, no nothing. And of course, the group kept moving along all day. So just be prepared.

 

That was by far our favorite day--seeing Vatican City alone was just incredible, and then to top it off with Roman ruins....wow. I didn't expect to be as awed and entranced as I was, but it was spellbinding, and well worth the long day.

Whew, I am going to take a break and finish off this review tomorrow. I will see if I can figure out my photo situation--everything says HEIC, and I don't know what that means, but they won't load. Why aren't they in JPEG?  I will strive to figure it out, because I really want to share my photos with you guys. Maybe @twangster knows what HEIC means? Help?

 

More soon!

SSA

IMG_2324~photo.HEIC

[jbrinkm]

8 minutes ago, She Sails Away said:

Whew, I am going to take a break and finish off this review tomorrow. I will see if I can figure out my photo situation--everything says HEIC, and I don't know what that means, but they won't load. Why aren't they in JPEG?  I will strive to figure it out, because I really want to share my photos with you guys. Maybe @twangster knows what HEIC means? Help?

HEIC is High Efficiency Image Container/Format used by Apple to get high quality photos for less memory. If you have an image app on your phone/device, you might be able to open them and then convert or save as into JPEG/JPG format. You could also check your camera settings to see if you can switch the format you are using when you capture the photos - I use Android so I am unsure if this is an option...

Loving your review!!!

[She Sails Away]

6 minutes ago, jbrinkm said:

HEIC is High Efficiency Image Container/Format used by Apple to get high quality photos for less memory. If you have an image app on your phone/device, you might be able to open them and then convert or save as into JPEG/JPG format. You could also check your camera settings to see if you can switch the format you are using when you capture the photos - I use Android so I am unsure if this is an option...

Loving your review!!!

Oh my goodness thank you for this information. I have literally about 800 photos and videos I would like to keep forever, not to mention I can't put them into my video software and I'm needing these for my YT channel. Here's what I did, I put a phone-flash drive into my phone and put the majority of my photos onto that flash drive. When I downloaded those onto my computer, apparently they got converted this way. Do you happen to know if I have to go through each photo individually to try to fix it? Or if I can just re-download the flash drive in some other format?
 

I realize that you maybe can't answer this question and I'm going to need to get on the computer and do some research, just hoping for a fix that doesn't take weeks long! 

[twangster]

@jbrinkm is correct about the HEIC file format.  Leave it to Apple to break the internet ;).

There are apps that will bulk process photos on ios but it becomes a pain keeping track of what phones have been converted, where they are stored and how to upload them.

I switched to Android a few years ago and haven't looked back.  

[Xaa]

Loving your review @She Sails Away.  Looking to do May 2025 Med trip so this is great!

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

It’s so great following along on your awesome adventures and making notes for my own use in the hopefully near future!  Great pictures and I do hope you figure out how to switch over the formatting so we can see more!

[She Sails Away]

19 hours ago, twangster said:

@jbrinkm is correct about the HEIC file format.  Leave it to Apple to break the internet ;).

There are apps that will bulk process photos on ios but it becomes a pain keeping track of what phones have been converted, where they are stored and how to upload them.

I switched to Android a few years ago and haven't looked back.  

Thank you! Yes, definitely a lesson learned as this was the first time I tried using a phone flash drive. I spent the day sorting out the mess and I'm thankful that the hundreds of photos and videos I have are still there, I was able to download them properly into JPEG format, and all is well.

I have often thought about switching to galaxy myself.

[She Sails Away]

Whew, photos are sorted! To celebrate, a few pictures of beautiful Symphony.

[She Sails Away]

Palma photos! This was a fun and easy day of walking, touring the city, souvenir shopping, and sampling some gelato.

[She Sails Away]

Marseilles!

We don't know what the big orange bear is all about, but naturally we had to have a photo.

We finished our day with Campfire Cookie!

[She Sails Away]

More Florence! Swooning just revisiting my photos. Note the final photo for crowd reference. This level of crowds is just something you need to expect. If you're fine with it, great. If you are claustrophobic or can't stand being smooshed, coughed on, or stepped on, then you need to give some thought into what you're going to do in both Florence and Rome as far as tours.

[She Sails Away]

Vatican Overwhelming, as I call this set. Opulence and history everywhere you look.

[She Sails Away]

The second half of our day in Rome, with the Colosseum and Roman forum. It's kind of hard to look at these photos and feel anything, but when you are walking among them and hearing the stories of what you're looking at, it's pretty humbling. So much turmoil and violence and of course, unbelievable cruelty. So much wealth and power. True ancient history brought to life.

[She Sails Away]

Ok, so we have arrived at our final port stop, which was Naples.

 

I booked "Pompeii on your own" shuttle tickets through Royal. We had a departure time of 11.

 

Departure from the ship was easy and our shuttle was waiting. It was a full-size bus and it was about half full. It was about a 20 minute drive to Pompeii. Our driver parked the bus and our guide got out of the bus and lead us to the gates of Pompeii, which was about a 10 minute walk from the bus parking lot.

 

He led us to the gate of the site, giving us some information along the way. He said that Pompeii is the largest excavation site in the world, and 20,000 visitors come every day.

The entrance to Pompeii lets out into a huge area filled with souvenir booths, food booths, and a couple of small coffee shops. He let us know that he would be back in two hours to meet us in that exact spot.

At first I was disappointed that we only got two hours. Pompeii is absolutely huge and I was thinking there's no way we could see much in just two hours. However, after just 30 minutes of being out in the sun, I knew that two hours would be plenty. It was quite warm and late in the day.

But to backtrack. I have a tip for folks heading to Pompeii on their own. Get online and buy your tickets ahead of time. We had shuttle tickets yes, but we did not have tickets to the site, so we had to get in line to buy them. We stood in a long line for 30 minutes. Yep, 30 minutes out of our two hours was spent waiting to buy tickets. Meanwhile, there was a prepaid tickets line to our left that had no waiting. So just keep that in mind.

We came late in the day so the line was actually considered quite short. It would've been much worse early in the morning.

And not to sound like a wimp but let me repeat that it was quite warm, and mind you this is only May. I cannot imagine visiting any of these sites in July or August as I don't do well in boiling hot heat. Many people in Italy walked around with umbrellas for shade. My son went to the café and got us some bottled waters while we were waiting and that helped a lot.

So, we added Pompeii to our list of the most incredible things we saw in our lives, and it's a bit overwhelming to have all of those things fall three days in a row of each other. I mean it was just one incredible day after another. I have to say at this point we were pretty tired but just the same, we were excited to see the site.

Pompeii was a lot more low-key than Florence or Rome of course, because we were wandering around on our own without a tour guide. 

It was so much more than I imagined, in both size and scope. And sophistication. This was a large city, with block after block of closely pressed homes, a really big public Square, some kind of temple, a place that look like an amphitheater, and something that look like possibly a sporting area. Not to mention miles of cobblestoned roads. This was not a hodgepodge village of sorts by any means.

It was haunting, walking past home after home after home with all the empty windows, missing roofs, empty doorways, and the wildflowers growing up where families lived. One home had just enough wall left to where you could see the decorative fresco paintings, even after all that wall went through. It was also eerie walking on those cobblestone roads and wondering whose feet had been on them centuries ago.

If I had to do over again, I would have prepared for the visit by watching some history videos or reading some books about Pompeii, so that I had more of an idea of what I was looking at. We just went into it blindly, and soaked in what was in front of us, but we didn't have much comprehension.

Weirdly, right in the middle of the city was a snack stand selling pizza. The place was quite crowded, and it seem to me that there were a lot of locals there with their lunches, either buying pizza or having picnics among the ruins on the grass. 

It's also kind of a thing that there are a lot of stray cats in the area, and one lady was feeding her sandwich to a cat.

 

We walked all over, took a lot of pictures and video, and ended up in a small museum there. They have some artifacts and statues there, and some reproduced casts from the mummified bodies found in Pompeii. Of course those were horrifying; they had a few people, a baby, and a horse.

 

We left the site with just a few minutes to spare, got some drinks and looked at a few souvenir stands. Our guide arrived promptly. We had to wait a while for two stragglers but then he walked us back to the bus and took us back to the ship. All in all it was a good choice for the day because at this point, we were exhausted from our back to back 10 hour days in Florence and Rome.  It did not help that when we returned to the ship each night, we didn't go straight to bed of course. We would eat dinner, see a show, and then both of us would stay in the casino until midnight, telling ourselves we really needed to wrap it up.

When we return to the ship it was about 2 o'clock. We had planned at this point to walk into Naples and try some pizza there and look for Christmas Ally. But we were wiped out. Just physically fried, and to be honest, Naples looked really seedy. The area around the port was torn up and ramshackle, and we just weren't feeling like walking another hour or so. We went back to the ship and collapsed for the afternoon.

 

In my cruise Facebook group, there was this certain degree of grumbling about Naples in general. A couple of people complained that it was very inaccessible for wheelchairs or those with mobility challenges. A couple of other people complain about rudeness, aggressive vendors, that sort of thing. I didn't go into the city so I can't comment, I'm just sharing what was said.

We had a good rest of the day with dinner in the main dining room, an ice-skating show that was spectacular, and a $100 win on a slot machine!

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

53 minutes ago, She Sails Away said:

The second half of our day in Rome, with the Colosseum and Roman forum. It's kind of hard to look at these photos and feel anything, but when you are walking among them and hearing the stories of what you're looking at, it's pretty humbling. So much turmoil and violence. So much wealth and power. True ancient history brought to life.

Remembering the goosebumps I got when I walked into the Colosseum!  Your pictures are so awesome but yes, being there brings a whole new meaning and feeling!

[Ampurp85]

Pompeii was a spectacular visit for me and my family, but grandmother had it rough with the walking. I also remember how packed it was at the Vatican in October. I made a picture book of my times in Italy because the whole thing was a trip of a lifetime. 

[She Sails Away]

So that brings me to the end of our cruise. We had one sea day before it was all over and believe me we needed that time to rest! We toured so much and stayed up so late and tried to do all the things and just had a really amazing week. We were most definitely exhausted though. I had about a 20 hour travel day to get home including my 10 1/2 hour flight which was delayed by three hours. Glad to be home but really soaking in those memories. So glad I went. Symphony is also an amazing ship and I'm glad I got to be on board.

 

thanks to all who read my little review and liked and commented. My next cruise will make me diamond.... i'm not sure if that's going to mean a lot or not, but we'll see! This was an horizon-expanding cruise and I would recommend it to anybody.

 

[Jen Hancock]

Thank you for sharing all these details!   Ales me feel excited and prepared for our trip.

I am taking my 15 yr old on the reverse cruise (Venice to Barcelona) in July, it’s her first time overseas.  Hoping she also finds it horizon expanding!

[She Sails Away]

That sounds very fun! I hope you'll share your travels with us. Venice is on my bucket list!

[She Sails Away]

Somehow, I forgot to mention that at the end of our tour of Rome, we visited St Peter in Chains (church), where we saw the chains that held St Peter, and the statue of Moses, carved by Michaelangelo. Both have fascinating stories behind them. 
 

in reading back over my blog, I'm not sure I gave enough praise to our all day tours of Florence and Rome. They were absolutely worth every penny and they were not cheap. They were incredible. I would have regretted it so much to make it so close to such famous cities and then not done much of anything.

Our day in Rome was just fascinating, every single minute was jampacked. I have to say it was an overwhelming and physically exhausting day but I would not trade it for anything. My recommendation is, if this is your first time in Rome and you don't expect to go back anytime soon, take the most comprehensive all day tour you can manage. See as much as you can see.

 

I did not expect to find the Roman forum that interesting, but when our tour guide explained who lived there, what happened there, all of the exchanges of power and the people and the scandal and politics and everything else, it really came to life and it's just incredible to look at something that old and understand the real history behind it.

 

we equally treasured our day in Florence. If you are an art lover or history lover, this is the place for you. Unbelievable treasures. Another day to do as much as you can and I highly recommend a tour.

 

I do have a few general tips for people visiting the Mediterranean for the first time on this cruise. Aside from all of the obvious things like booking your shore excursions early and stuff, I recommend bringing a really good hat and sunglasses. A visor won't cut it. Bring a full hat to protect your scalp and hair. If you're going to ride around on hop on or hop off bus is, you might want sunscreen.

 

if you're doing the all day tours like I did and like I recommend, make sure you pack a portable battery charger for your phone to take with you. You may also want to bring a few bottles of water from the ship. If you're bringing a backpack, make sure it's medium to small because they will not allow oversized backpacks in some of the historic sites such as the Vatican.

 

it will say so on your tour description, but make sure you look at the level of activity and choose a tour that you're going to really enjoy and be able to keep up with comfortably. When they say strenuous, they mean it. Sixish hours into our tour, we lost a couple who elected to go back to the bus and wait (in the heat, for two hours,) because they couldn't walk anymore.

 

if possible, I recommend mixing up your port days. If you're going to have a long all day tour or maybe two of those kind of days back to back, try to mix up your other port stops with really short days and easy walks. Sleep late when you can. Don't exhaust yourself too early in the cruise because you don't want to miss any of the ports because everything is worth seeing.

 

there's a big time difference over there obviously, and jet lag is real. If you can get there three days ahead of time to get a head start on getting used to the time change, that would be ideal. Don't expect to cram too much into those early days before the cruise though. You may be too exhausted. Plan a few things but also plan to be flexible.

 

anyway, still reflecting on what a terrific trip that was. Thanks so much for following along!

 

[asquared17]

WHAT A TRIP!!!!

your photos and recap are incredible! thank you so much for sharing with us

[She Sails Away]

Awww thanks--it was very special!