Livorno

Cruising on the 8th Aug on QV the port stop on the 9th has sadly been changed from La Spezia to Livorno we were planning on seeing Cinque Terre independently but feel this would be to difficult to do now. We plan on staying in Livorno as we have already visited Florence and Pisa on previous cruises , can anyone suggest things to do or see.

Hi Neverland. I will be on the same cruise. I join the ship on 1 August until 15 August. I researched Livorno yesterday. Other than the usual ideas of going to Florence, Pisa or Cinque Terre, there was not much about the town itself. Anyway, this is what I wrote down:

There is a HoHo (Hop-on Hop-off) bus for €12 but buses only go once an hour, which means a bit of a wait. The tour itself takes an hour. You can extend it with a boat trip. You can also go on a funicular. One article said that the tour can begin at San Giovanni, a short walk from the port. Tours start at 10.00 and leave every hour until 14.00.

We enjoyed spending time in Lucca - it is Italy's most impressive fortress city. You can walk or hire a bike for a leisurely ride along the perfectly intact wall that encircles the city. There is a wonderful little coffee shop called - "Di Simo" off the main town square on Via Fillungo for an excellent cup of coffee and a pastry or a light lunch.

We hired a car and drove the relatively short and easy distance to Lucca but there is a train service too (via Pisa I believe). Hertz come right to the ship's gangway as do other car rental companies.

Cruising on the 8th Aug on QV the port stop on the 9th has sadly been changed from La Spezia to Livorno we were planning on seeing Cinque Terre independently but feel this would be to difficult to do now. We plan on staying in Livorno as we have already visited Florence and Pisa on previous cruises , can anyone suggest things to do or see.

we had the exact same issue (the port change on the QV) in early july of this year on the Rome to Rome cruise . we did this same shore excursion to cinque terre and sort of regretted it. It was a LONG way, 1 1/2 hours or a little more. we left early in the morning 8:30 ish and did not get back til 7 PM.

This cinque terre tour was too long, too hot, the towns were very very crowded and the beaches (if you call them that" were also jammed). They were small rocky beaches overrun with people- in two of the towns they gave you "free time" of like 1 1/2 hours each time . after the second town, and more free time about 25 people on our bus asked the tour guide "hey, can we just go back to the ship"? he said I'd lose my job, then another a long 40 min wait in the heat for the train connection back to the bus, issues with FINDING where the bus was (4 or 5 calls: where are you?), then the 1 1/ hour ride back to the ship. No water on the bus. in Costa Rica many buses have a big cooler of ice with water bottles, not here. 40 or 50 people at $100+ = $5000?? each seems there would be a budget on a hot summer day for one bottle per person- nope. wait til you get back to the ship. Whats a bottle of water cost when bought in bulk? $ 50 cents? On the Cunard survey wife and I rated this excursion as poor.

I concur with OceanMonarch - Lucca is a lovely, easy to get around small city to visit. The rail station is just outside the walkable city walls. Puccini lived in Lucca and there are several interesting museums. A gorgeous oval-shaped piazza is a must see. I really must make a return visit!

Thanks for all your replies we certainly won't be doing the ships excursion far to long , we will probably just have an easy day in Livorno and head back to the ship to relax , we will be busy enough for the next 12 days !! Can't wait now .

We plan on staying in Livorno as we have already visited Florence and Pisa on previous cruises , can anyone suggest things to do or see.

Personally I never tire of Florence, it is an easy train ride from Livorno and even having been to Florence some 30 times there are still some places I have not seen or would visit again. That said, I am always happy to stroll around Italian towns. Viareggio is not a bad place to walk.

our table mates went into Liverno and seemed to like it, I think it was a walking tour for them.

Hi neverland1,

We had a stop in Livorno on QV earlier this year and as we had done Florence and Pisa before we decided to stay in Livorno. After researching the options we decided to take the open top bus tour.

It is a bit different from the norm as the bus is a single decker with open top and a few seats under the driver's canopy at the front. The day we took the bus it was very hot and it was good to be moving along. It also belts along at a fair clip along fairly bumpy roads. There is the usual recorded commentary. It was fairly good fun.

You need to be careful about the timings, particularly as there is a stop at the funicular railway which is worth getting off at as it takes you to the peak for some fairly spectacular views. There aren't many seats on the bus so I'm not sure what they would do if there was a queue at the funicular and nobody on the bus wanted to get off??.

We found the timetable on the internet so managed our time quite well as we did the bus tour first. We also researched and found a walking tour of the canals on the Internet which took us along a route to see a number of interesting sights and there are some nice photo opportunities along the canal itself. There is also the option to take a boat trip round the canal which might also be quite interesting.

We also had a relaxed lunch in town and then headed back to the ship for a lazy afternoon.

I would say it is worth doing the same sort of thing although I'm not sure we would do the same again next time around. As someone has said, Lucca is very nice and worth a visit. If we do go back I think we would head back to Florence.

Hope this helps.

Derek

We had booked to CT tour but cancelled it as it seems like way to long a day. As we will have just spent 7 days in Tuscany I think it will be a day to stay on the ship and enjoy the Q V

Sylva