Villefranche Sur Mer to Nice

Today our ship anchored off the coast of the south of France at the beautiful little town of Villefranche Sur Mer.

We joined the queue to tender to the shore in one of the ship's lifeboats.

Once on shore we set off to walk on a footpath along the coast to Nice.

However, just as we were starting out we had to walk down a very tight hairpin bend, and were very surprised to see that one of the coaches taking our fellow passengers on a day trip to Monaco had got completely stuck.

The driver had crashed the bus into walls twice, was blocking the road, and was just sitting there with the engine switched off. We left just as the passengers were beginning to get off and mutiny, and I have no idea how things ended up.

We had more success and the route was amazing.

There was many steps, sometimes we were high above the sea then swooped back down again, but a fantastic journey that eventually took us to Nice.

From a distance we thought that this statue was the mini from the film Mr Bean's Holiday, but that was filmed just along the coast in Cannes, and this little car had the title of 'A Saturday in Nice'.

I had the chance to practice my French and ordered two cafe au lait at a beachside bar, and the jambon fromage panini's from a little stand. Both waitresses were very polite, but they both giggled apologetically at my accent and choice of words.

We ate our lunch down at the Nice Marina and I preferred the little rowing boats to the long row of super yachts just across the harbour.

We had two more stops, one for wine and one for ice cream and then caught the train back to Villefranche.

San Gimigiano and Siena

 Today we went on a trip from the ship to Tuscany. It's somewhere that I have always wanted to go to see the rolling hills, the farmhouses with pencil thin cyprus trees and beautiful umbrella trees.

We got my wish and some very dramatic weather too.

Our first stop was the hilltop village of San Gimigiano, famous for it's huge towers that were built to show off the wealth of the residents. 

Originally there was 72 of these strange monstrosities, but only 14 remain, so imagine what it looked like originally. (Little van for scale.)

They made a dramatic site, and the village also had a lovely peaceful monastery, obviously with views of the towers.

As if that's not enough for one village, it also had a gelato school, and allegedly sold the best gelato in the world.

I possibly made a mistake and bought my gelato from 'The most famous gelato in the world' shop, but then a few metres later we came across 'The best gelato in the world' sign, but anyway, mine was very good.

Next was lunch with wine tasting. A good time was had by all, although hardly anyone bought any of the bottles afterwards as the cost was eye watering.

On to Siena, famous in my mind for one thing - the horse racing scenes round the square.

Our guide was very thorough though and had other things to show us. 

We spent lots of time inside two churches, the first of which was definitely missable, and I have searched our photos app and neither of us took any pictures.

But the second was spectacular.

It looked magnificent and the sun was in just the right angle to make the whole thing glow.

There was a big queue to get inside, but again it was incredible.

The floor was covered with huge mosaic scenes, and for most of the year they are covered over and protected by carpets as there are church services most days. For reasons that I didn't quite hear, they are only uncovered for a few weeks each year, and we were lucky enough to see them.

Our local guide walked very slowly explaining all of them to us, and we saw that our bus  guide who was with us all day was looking annoyed. They turned off the microphone and had an angry Italian style conversation and then carried on.

The reason for this argument soon became clear as when we eventually arrived at the main square and the location of the Palio horse race, we only had eight minutes to either have a quick look or visit the public toilets before we had to rush back to the coach.

You could tell that everyone was disappointed and probably desperate for a coffee and a sit down, but we had to get back to the ship. By this time our bus guide was looking frantic, and we got back with 15 minutes to spare before the ship was due to leave.

Ps, we knew that the ship wouldn't leave without us, but the guide was supposed to get us back with 45 minutes to spare so maybe she got into trouble with her boss.

Civitavecchia stroll

 We are on a cruise and have called at Civitavecchia on the Italian coast. Most people get up early for a day trip to Rome, but we decided to take it easy and just spend the day in Chivi, as the locals possibly call it.

It has a large port, and so we caught the shuttle bus outside the dock gates and set off on a walk.

Right at the dock entrance is a fortress that is in great condition. It certainly repelled everyone from the ship as there was no way of getting inside. However, there was also miles of wire fencing so once you got near to it there was no way out apart from to follow it right round in a loop.

Eventually we found a route to the seafront and to the rather empty big wheel.

We followed the promenade to the Victorian Bridge. 

The bridge leads from the promenade to a little island just offshore. The internet said that it had a bar that was open until daily until 3am, however there was no sign of any bar, so it just proves that you can't always trust AI.

We put our disappointment aside and read a noticeboard that told us more about the area. In it's heyday thousands of day trippers used to catch the train here from Rome. They would get off at the station that is just one street back from the coast, and then walk  straight on to this bridge across to the island.

They would then spend the day swimming and sunbathing and then the evening dancing and drinking.

It sounds lovely, but sadly not today.