Sleep7

Back in Livorno for lunch.. perfect timing!

😊On the way back to the ship the guide told us how Pinocchio got his name. The trees that are native to the area that look like broccoli stalks are pine (pino in Italian) trees and Pinocchio was made out of pine wood. Fun fact!📚

I love carousel pictures too!

More from beautiful Lucca..

We did have time to sample some cashew brittle and a tasty slice of pizza.

Lucca also has a fully intact city wall that you can walk around. We walked only part way as we didn't have enough time to walk the whole thing.

Lucca is know for being the city of one hundred churches.. and it seems that each one came with a bell tower. This bell tower is the most interesting as it was always a competition to have the tallest tower. To make their tower taller they planted trees on the top.

Today we chose the ship's tour "Lucca on your own" and it was great! We assembled in the lounge at 7:45 and quickly boarded our bus to Lucca which was a short 45 minute ride away. We have never been to Lucca before and after the hustle and bustle of Florence yesterday Lucca was a welcome respite. We had about 2.5 hours to walk around and that was just right. Giacomo Puccini's birthplace. Our guide told us that the statue of the Archangel Michael at the top of this church has a "diamond" on it's hand that catches the light and shines when the sun hits it just right. A flower stand always makes a great picture.

THURSDAY - APRIL 27. Day two in Livorno.

The ship was a beautiful sight on our way back.. we were greeted smiles with trays of sparkling wine and desserts. Never a dull (or snack free) moment. Thanks Azamara.😍

Love the opera house.. something out of a movie. Very much like the opera house at the end of the Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase movie "Foul Play."

On our way to the buses!

Tonight's performance was an abbreviated version of "La Traviata" which means "The Fallen Woman." Given the title I knew that this wasn't going to have a happy ending. My parents ADORED opera and it seemed like most operas were either comedic farces, very long and Germanic, or tragic ones where somebody died at the end either of consumption or jumping off a tower. This was a dying of consumption one. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk on opera.😁😉 To any opera buffs out there I'm apologizing in advance for my neanderthal summary of opera types!🫣

As we arrived back at the ship around 5:30 we made a fast turn around and got ready for the Azamazing Evening. Kudos to the way Azamara is able to comfortably feed and mobilize 600 guests all at the same time and make it look so effortless. That's truly azamazing too! We had been to the Goldoni Theatre on a past Azamara cruise and it's as charming as ever.

At 3:40 we were all present and accounted for and met at the jewelry store in Piazza Santa Croce for our ride back to the ship. Being Jewish I noticed the Basilica has a Jewish star on the top.. very unusual. I googled more about it. "The Jewish architect Niccolo Matas from Ancona, designed the church's façade, working a prominent Star of David into the composition. Matas had wanted to be buried with his peers there but because he was Jewish, he was buried under the threshold and honored with an inscription."

👋Good morning RedBlu! Aww.. thanks so much for your kind words.😍 Yes.. even though the website redo has been extremely frustrating for just about everyone.. once you get on board it all disappears.. only smiles.. no worries. So glad that my report is getting you excited for your cruise in June! Coming up so soon!!👏

👋Good morning TERRIER1! Thank you so very much for following along and for your sweet compliments.😊 Yes.. we have always flown in the day that the cruise begins and fly home on the day the cruise ends. In all these years (knock wood!) we have never had an issue with cancellations or delays or lost luggage so I feel very lucky about that. Most of the flights we take are nonstop from JFK which does cut down on unexpected things happening so that is a comfort. As a fellow New Yorker we are so lucky about the availability of flights to Europe. Sam still works so there isn't too much wiggle time around adding extra days to either end of a cruise. I wish there was but not at this moment.. someday though.😊

More from Florence.. The face you make when the very nice lady who is taking your picture looks like she might get hit by a car.. 😳 Don't worry.. no photographers were harmed during the taking of this picture.😉 I took a ton of her family too.📷

We sought out the Petit Bateau store which is a fabulous place to buy a gift. They have beautiful cotton clothing for babies and children as well as cotton basics for women.

Lovely weather and a lovely city. What a day!

After our museum visit it was just about lunch time so we walked through the markets over to the second floor of the Mercado and shared a pizza and an Aperol spritz for lunch.😊

More from the museum. Great place to bring children too as there were loads of interactive activities. A 500 year old Peloton machine! The mockups were made from the drawings of his original notebooks.

Sam and Leo.

Sam had just listened to a book about Leonardo Da Vinci so we decided to visit one of the two Leonardo Da Vinci museums.. both located a few blocks from the Duomo. We chose the "interactive" one for no other reason that we came across it first. Well worth the 8 euro per person entrance fee. There was a lot to see! And nice bathrooms!