Palamos Spain - November 18

Here we took another afternoon tour - this time of the lush botanic garden Jardins de Santa Clotilde in Lloret de Mar and the coastal town of Tossa de Mar. Our guide Carlos was a fountain of knowledge and kept up a good pace when needed. Jardins de Santa Clotilde is truly beautiful, a private garden attached to a mansion on the coast, and manicured within an inch of its life. Tossa de Mar was a good contrast - a coastal town with its medieval castle, streets and many medieval buildings lovingly preserved. Then you guessed it - back to the ship for dinner and onto the next place.

La Seyne-Sur-Mer, France - November 17

We left Villefranche the day before at 4pm instead of 7pm, due to a westerly storm coming in that would result in 3m waves by 6pm. Captain Felice made a calming announcement letting us know it would be a loud night, but that side to side roll would be minimized by deploying stabilizers. However we could not dock at Toulon in the morning, since the port is on the east of a bay and the wind from the west made such an approach too dangerous. So instead we went to La Seyne-Sur-Mer which is on the west side of the bay. The night was loud due to waves striking the bow, but nothing to keep us from sleeping.

Seyne-Sur-Mer is a wonderful little port and town, with the town only a 15 minute walk from the cruise terminal. Some of the buildings in the town have stunning murals and we found an absolutely delightful restaurant for lunch - La Marmite des Filles - with a few tables outside and a dining room upstairs. My French was not up to the job, but the proprietor spoke good English and explained that for lunch they were serving just two dishes - a local fish with a courgette gratin and a locally made sausage with lentils. We had one of each and they were superb, washed down of course with the house wine. Yum!

Livorno and Lucca, Italy - November 14

Waking up in Livorno, we spent the morning lazing by the pool once the hordes had left on the early tours, enjoying the fact that we had booked an afternoon tour. At 2pm we got on our tour bus to visit the town of Lucca and met our guide for the afternoon, Francesca, who was wonderful. Lucca is a rare town with its medieval fortifications intact, including a wall around the whole town that you could drive a tank on. A wonderful town and tour with plenty of time to explore on our own. Then back to the ship for dinner and onto the next place overnight - a pattern we would get used to!