La Spezia, Italy

The morning got off to a rocky start at breakfast. We sat down at 8am and placed our order quickly so that we could be done in plenty of time for our tour. Michele & her parents are eating "gluten-free" meals and they have to speak with the head waiter for their special order. It has not been a problem so far, but this morning was a nightmare. We had trouble finding the head waiter. Then, Michele asked him a question and he immediately took off to find out the answer and didn't return for a long time. By this time, the boys & I had finished eating and Michele still didn't have her food. She still hadn't gotten her order 45 minutes later when it was time to leave. She was MAD! (and rightly so, I think).

Sandy decided she was too tired from all our touring and stayed on the ship today. We should have left Megan with her, but we didn't think of it until it was too late. We all gathered in our room this morning at 9am and then headed down to deck 1 to catch a tender to shore. That went pretty smoothly and we were on dry land by around 9:30am. We met our guides and spoke with them about what to do today. They told us that Florence was about 2 ½ hours drive from La Spezia. So, we decided not to go there, for sure. Pisa was about a 1 hour drive. Maybe later…

First, we decided to see a few things closer to the ship. We drove about 15 – 30 minutes to a little village by the sea called Lerici. We visited the castle which houses the Geopaleleontology (dinosaur) museum. The castle is located at the top of a big hill and we could only get there by stairway. I carried Megan in her car seat, while Kent carried the stroller up. 100+ steps later, we made it. Everyone was huffing & puffing after the climb, so we paused for a few minutes to take photos of the beautiful vista below.

After a short break, we headed into the castle and –more stairs. Michele finally got frustrated and said she & Megan would wait outside. Michele was finally able to buy some food while waiting for us to tour the museum. Afterwards, we walked around the town a bit and talked about what to do next. They suggested we drive to another nearby fishing village to get lunch. That sounded great, so we jumped back on the bus and headed out.

Boy, what a winding road! I think it was even worse than Naples. We wound our way up & down the hills, following the waterfront –back through La Spezia and on to Port Venere. It was almost an hour ride and everyone was starting to feel carsick by the time we arrived.

I think the drive was worth it, though –the village was so beautiful! We stopped at a sidewalk café and enjoyed a nice seafood & pasta lunch. We had umbrella's to provide shade and there was a nice ocean breeze. Mary Theresa even ran down the street and brought back some pizza for the kids.

After a very pleasant lunch, we continued to stroll along the waterfront shopping & sightseeing. The kids found a giant chessboard painted on the ground and played a round of "battle chess" with Kent. There was an old church at the top of the hill with absolutely stunning views in all directions. Cristina kept an eye on Megan while we checked it out. Of course Brandon had to climb on every rock & other dangerous area he could find –and Cameron had to follow right behind him.

I started getting really tired and was not feeling up to seeing Pisa in the afternoon. I asked around and was happy to learn that most of us were in agreement: Back to the ship! We drove back to La Spezia, boarded the tender and headed back to the Disney Magic. We had just enough time to get cleaned up and lay across the bed for a little while before our dinner seating.

There is a deck party tonight @ 9:45pm, so we may try to stay up for that, but I am pretty tired and hoping to turn in early. Day after day of tours is starting to wear us down. We need a day at sea soon! Tomorrow, we will be in Corsica and we have a boat ride & city tour planned. The boat sails early tomorrow, so at least we will be back early.