We docked at Livorno at 7:00 this morning and by 8:00 we had our Hertz car rental, ready to go. We set the GPS for Florence and 2 hours later, after some heavy traffic in Florence, we were parked in a parkade near the train station. Weather was cloudy and around 20 degrees, with off and on rain showers. We started a walking tour, combining some of the must see sights with shopping. At one point, as we were studying our map trying to figure out where we were, a fr...

Today we split up with Ron and Evelyn for our visit to Rome. They took the full day (10 1/2 hour) cruise ship shore excursion that hit all the highlights including the Vatican museum, St. Peters basilica, the Sistene Chapel, the Coliseum, etc. Because Sherry and I had seen the main sights of Rome on previous trips, we took the one hour train ride from Civitavechia, where the ship docked, to do some exploring on our own. We found free wifi in the main Rome train ...