Ariston Livorno

... Leaning Tower began to lean after its architect had completed only three tiers of the building. Most believe that the tower began leaning because of "shifting soil" – and then it continued to incline about 1mm every year since it was built! In 1998, however, the City of Pisa (realizing, I think, that if the tower ever fell over, their tourism industry would be severely curtailed!) wrapped cables around the third story of the ...

... mais apres presque 900 ans, elle est toujours la. dans le meme espace, il y a la cathedrale et un autre batiment , tous ca, en marbre blanc. En dehors de cette attraction, pise possede encore une bonne partie de ces fortification. si non, c'est une ville etudiante, avec 3 universites,donc il y a quand meme pas mal de vie

... as the place was so cramped and nothing else to do in town, but ended up having a good night both nights we were there.


Sunday did the walk between the 5 towns from Riomaggore to Monterosso. Took about 4.5 hours including thestops in each town to check them out.
The views out over the Ligurian Sea are stunning. Leaving one town and seeing the next far off in the distance, and sometimes a lot higher up in altitude, was really cool.

... and I had a wonderful 50th. Everyone sang to me in the small restaurant. Thank you everyone for following us and keeping us close with your wonderful comments. To sign off I will say that.....
"There is nowhere like Home".
Love Mick and Lisa

... for a few weeks whilst i went back to work
Belgium to pick up batteries from my dad as the originals were shagged
Luxembourg
Swizterland
Italy
Lake Maggiore (most expensive)
Cremona
Cecina Tuscany where we parked up again whilst i worked

... our balcony!

Back on the Ruby, we had time to relax on the Sun Deck. It was a very warm afternoon, in the high 20's so a relaxing couple hours seemed in order! Being a tourist can be exhausting!

We made sure we had dinner early as the final show of the Broadway Ballroom was in the Princess Theatre at 8:30pm. This show rivaled a very high level performance as the show featured the talents of the ...

... boat access between villiages. They do not have protected
harbors so boats are pulled up on land and parked lining the streets -
not visible in this shot. We saw one guy with his boat lugged maybe
a quarter mile and quite an elevation from the water to a low roof to
make repairs.

... off the ship for the first time in livorno, italy. this is where the leaning tower of pisa... um, leans. well, not IN livorno - it's actually a bit of a bus ride, then a train ride, then another bus ride and then you're there. so i got into the town, wandered for a while, contemplated my fear of being alone in a foreign city, decided to overcome my fear of being alone in a foreign city, and hopped on a bus to the train station. about 40 minutes into the ride ...

... off the surrounding mountain slopes. Was really hard to leave Chamonix, think it's the best stop so far. We managed to get it together all the same and prepare ourselves for the scary tunnel. It wasn't so scary after all though. We had to listen to the radio which played us safety messages in lots of languages. "Do not drive faster than 80k nor slower than 50k" that kinda thing. Was really hard to keep the focus on the road ahead the way the lights ...

... and we see more of the country. Between Pisa and La Spezia we drive through a mountain range and there is nothing there. No inhabitants, no village and more important since we are in dire need of diesel: no gas stations! When we finally find one (the most expensive one we've seen in Italy so far ...) we are very relieved that we made it and judging by the number of liters that go in our tank ...