The Night Watches

The last night on the boat, we had to have our bags packed and outside our room by 10:30 pm, for the porters to pick up . We ate our last dinner in the "Posh Dinning Room "(which was so yummy every night, and would surely be missed) with my aunt and uncle and cousins. We said our good-byes and headed off to bed. Bright and early at 6:30 am, the cruise director started announcing over the loud speaker in all of our rooms which group numbers were to get off the boat first. They have each guest put into a group, according to the travel plans they had next (for example, my cousin and aunt and uncle had a 9 am flight, so they had to be ready to leave the boat at 5:30 am) Each group was assigned a number, so from 6:30 on, we would hear another group number being announced... This was not my favorite way to wake up! We were planning on staying in Rome for two days, so we had the last group number to leave the boat... which means that we COULD have slept until 8 or so, if it had n...

When we were planning our trip, we decided to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa and go to another winery, instead of heading into Florence (which would have been another all day trip, like France was the day before). We were on our own this day, as the other members of the family all planned to go into the city. We had a short drive to Miracle Square, where we learned the history of the tower and the basilica and cathedral surrounding it. There were hundreds of people there, and tons of street vendors. We went into the basilica were this lady sang int he middle of it, and her echo sand back to her... it was pretty cool. below is the view from the entrance, with the basilica in the front. The Tower has a fascinating history, and as it turns out, is continuing to sink a little more every year. You can climb the 210 steps to get to the top, but they only allow 25 people up at a time! Tyler was asleep in the stroller for most of this tour! We opted not to climb the stairs! The little city is s...