Today was another full day. Our excursion—“Discovering Florence”—meets at 7:15am in Diversions on Deck 3. We awake, grab a quick bite and head out. In the port of La Spezia he Magic is anchored offshore sideways in the bay, so we have to catch a tender to the nearby port. The bus ride to Florence is about an hour. As we’ve seen throughout Italy, nearly everything here is ancient in one way or another.
Arriving in Florence we are passed over to a local guide, who walks us through the city. This is our first male tour guide. Like our other guides, he obviously has passion for what he does. The places we stop throughout the tour are too many to list here, but among them is the Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall of Florence overlooking the Piazza della Signoria with its famous statue of David by Michelangelo and gallery of statues in the nearby Loggia del Lanzi.
Maddie cannot quite grasp why the Renaissance Italians would leave their statues unclothed, but she’s interested nonetheless. Especially as the guide explains that David was the artist’s interpretation of David and Goliath from the Bible. Understanding that so much of the art we have seen has religion as its base has made it more interesting for both girls. They might not appreciate it now, but to walk in the remains of Pompeii, or the footsteps of the masters here in Florence, will be a great help to them at some point in their academic future.
Along the way we walk by the Uffizi Gallery, a palace housing one of the oldest and most famous art museums in the world, and the Accademia Gallery. The lines to enter are very long. Apparently, they aren’t on our agenda, and we move on. This is the first tour we’ve been on where the DCL-selected tour operator is a little disorganized. Because of the walking tour route we take, we arrive at Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross), the ending point of our walking tour, at an odd time and there is another very long line. Our guide is a little perplexed and gives us the choice of waiting, or having lunch early and finishing with some time on our own. More interested in pasta than pieces of art, the mob elects for lunch and off we go. Our dining location is beautiful—a palace originally constructed for the sister of Napoleon.
It’s a huge hall with massive chandeliers made of intricate, hand-colored glass. DCL has obviously reserved the entire hall for the number of tours that are in Florence today (all with slightly different agendas). At the moment our little group has the run of the place—we’re the only ones here thus far. We enjoy a leisurely appetizer, some wine and bottled water. Our server, a pleasant older Italian man, brings on two types of pasta, insisting that Megan try more ravioli. After the pasta we have the main course of meat, potato and vegetables. Of course, no great Italian meal is complete without dessert and coffee. I’m blessed to enjoy my lunch with Angie and the girls, another passenger and her daughter, and our unexpected guest—Allysa, a member of the crew of the Magic who is off work today and enjoying the excursion. She tells us that she is a dancer in the entertainment cast. At 23, Allysa has already been a cast member for five years, joining the company fresh from high school. I asked who played Cinderella in “Twice Charmed” the previous night—she had a beautiful voice. In true Disney form, and without hesitation, the young dancer replies, “Cinderella.” Duh! Everybody has a laugh and Allysa tells us to look for her in tomorrow night’s show. We’ll be watching.
We wrap up our tour with an hour of shopping on our own. I’m really interested in buying a painting from one of the many artists who have set up shop on the cobblestone street, but most are beyond my budget. The girls grab a gelato and we just take in the scenery while we wait for the remainder of our group to arrive at the meeting point to return to the ship. Par for the course, many are taking a siesta on the bus back, including dad.
We don’t get back to the Magic until after 7pm. Waters in the bay are choppy from boat traffic, and the tender captain is testy, but we arrive at the Magic without incident. Back on board we decide to skip tonight’s theater show, the crew talent show. On the way to the cabin we run into Arya (“Ary”), our cabin steward. He’s very friendly and has done an excellent job of keeping us organized (you can imagine how dirty a tiny cabin with four people can get over 11 days).
Our dinner rotation tonight is in Animator’s Palate. Megan abandons us to hang with her new teen friends. Our restaurant server and tablemates are beginning to suspect we threw her overboard. Dinner is good and we get an unexpected surprise when Belle comes around to greet the children.
After dinner we head back to the cabin for some shuteye. Tomorrow is another big excursion day in Marseilles—our first in France—and we need our beauty sleep.
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