The first stop for the cruise ship was Florence. The ship offered day trips to Florence, Tuscany wine country and Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre would have been my first choice, but all the cruise offerings were over 100 dollars a person and some neared 200 dollars per person to take a bus to whichever local. You then had x hours on your own (generally between four and six hours.)

I tried to find a private driver to no avail. I think the cheapest I found was 400 dollars for the day to get us to our choice of locations. This was a pretty steep cost and after figuring out just how little time there is in each port, I’m really glad we didn’t spend the money. The cruise ship did not post the times we would be let off ahead of time. That time was different in each port, which added to the stress of trying to make plans. Luckily for Florence, we planned on grabbing a taxi to the train station and then taking the train to Florence. The train left once each hour.

Finding a taxi was easy–they were waiting right outside the ship. The first driver I talked to wasn’t interested in taking the three of us to the train station–he was hoping for a day excursion to Florence and offered to take us to Florence for forty euros a piece. Of course, he intended to fill his 8 person van before leaving.

We opted for a different taxi and found another couple headed to the Livorno train station. The taxi driver gave a price rather than use the meter, but twenty euros between our two groups wasn’t likely to get any cheaper so we hopped in. The train station was a little confusing, as are all train stations. We had about a half hour to get a ticket for the hourly train to Florence and with the long line, we weren’t certain we’d make it, but we did. We never saw the little yellow machine where we were supposed to stamp our tickets, but a helpful tourist sent me back where I jammed all three tickets in and then caught up with my parents.

The train cost just under 13 euros round-trip per person. Pretty good deal. The train ended in Florence so there was no worry about when to get off. The Florence train station was rather large, confusing and unfriendly, despite an information office. The tourist office would not give train information and before we left the station, I wanted to have an understanding of where we had to go in order to catch a return train. I ended up walking around and just getting more confused so we finally headed out. The reason for the confusion cleared up later–the Florence train station doesn’t post trains/docks until 15 minutes before that train is scheduled to leave. Thus, trying to prepare ahead of time isn’t very doable.

We hit the street–or it hit us. Wow. Construction, confusion…I had a map–again the delightful MapEasy’s Guidemap to Florence, but since I didn’t have a street marker…it took a few minutes and some wasted walking to figure out where to go.

Then, we were off! Our first stop was the San Lorenzo street market, an alleyway of shops and tents with lots of leather items. It turned out to be a highpoint of the day. The guidebook said to skip it and come back later–don’t! It was by far the best market we found. Dad bought a change purse and we looked at a lot of other goodies. I staved off buying because I expected to see two other markets during the day.

We went inside the San Lorenzo church (The pictures I took didn’t come out well due to the darkness inside the church so none are posted, sorry!). We then stopped outside the famous Duomo, but frankly after all the churches and statues in Rome, we were a bit monumented out. The outside of the Duomo is spectacular, but it’s smack in the middle of busy tourist intersections and other tall buildings. The building itself is incredible (see the picture with the detail of some of the carvings on the side of the building), but there’s not enough open space to come upon it and really…get a sense of it. The surroundings are quite distracting.

I understand the real beauty of the place is inside, but there were lines and in any case, my parents could not climb any part of any tower. We made quick work of the plaza and then continued down some side roads to other churches and so forth. In hindsight, given that my parents were having a slow day we would have done just as well to stand in line and see only the Duomo. By the time we walked around for another couple of hours, they were just too tired out.

Frankly, a few hours is not the way to see Florence. We did go inside two churches. They were beautiful to be sure, but…Florence was a blur of tired walking, nice statues (the replica of David is in one of the plazas. We saw it, but didn’t realize until we were on the train on the way back that it was the Michaelangelo copy, uneducated folks that we are.) I think we would have been more awed by Florence had we not just spent three days in Rome seeing some pretty impressive monuments, churches and museums. We actually could have stayed another full hour, but we went back to the train station, got a soda and milkshake at McDonalds and spent the time figuring out which train track we needed to be at. Just for the record, milkshakes are cheaper than soda. The milkshake was one euro and the soda (Coke) two. It doesn’t matter if you get the European soda or the American one. Soda is one of the highest priced drinks. It’s cheaper to get bottled water, coffee, tea or…milkshakes!

One thing is for sure. I am glad we did not spend a lot of money on the day excursion. If I had to do it all over again, I’d probably pick one or two things near the train station (such as the San Lorenzo market–the other markets were much more expensive and had fewer items. The leather school was a nice, quiet and quaint stop, but it was in no way a bargain.) We enjoyed what we saw and I would have liked to see the famous museum across the river, but it was too far to get to and I don’t think it was opened on Mondays in any case (the Palazzo Pitti).

If you are on a cruise and you take a day trip to Florence, be aware that the scenery on the train ride is not all that exciting. You are not cruising through the Tuscany countryside; you will see mostly a few backyard gardens and train stations. I think that is also the case if you take the cruise ship bus. If you want to see the countryside, you’ll want to book that tour specifically or hire a driver to take you around. I can’t say if it would be worth the price. For me, I don’t think I could see two or three hundred dollars worth of scenery in such a few short hours. Cinque Terre, Lucas and the countryside probably need to be enjoyed as leisurely day trips from a central location where you have time to explore. Cinque Terre in particular offers fishing/snorkeling trips, what looks to be great hiking opportunities and small shops and restaurants, but you’d probably have to be staying nearby to enjoy the atmosphere and all that it has to offer.

If I had to schedule this trip all over again, I’d take a train to Lucas. It’s smaller and also is supposed to have a market and a few churches worth visiting. Lucas is closer to Livorno so the walking/sightseeing would probably have been more leisurely. Of course, getting there did require a change of trains, so that would have been an added hassle to figure out. But the trains were far more reasonable than any of the tours in this port. Nothing I saw convinced me that paying the tour prices was worth it.