You'll walk with your guide through downtown Florence and enjoy the Leonardo Da Vinci Museum. You’ll meet the staff close to your La Spezia cruise ship port. There you’ll board your luxury air-conditioned transportation with free Wi-Fi onboard. Your friendly staff can help you in English, Italian and Spanish. You can take a look through the free map on the 60-minute drive to Florence. Once in Flor
ence, you'll be dropped off by the Santa Maria Novella train station centrally located. From there, your knowledgeable guide will lead you through the streets and past some of the most important landmarks of the city such as the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge) and Signoria Square where you can admire the Palazzo Vecchio with its crenelated tower and the famous Uffizi Gallery. After your walking excursion, you'll visit the Leonardo Da Vinci Museum where you can admire some of Da Vinci's interesting studies. In his lifetime, he completed a great number of scientific manuscripts (well over 4000 pages!) where he kept the notes of his studies and made a lot of sketches on a wide range of interests and preoccupations. These pages were later collected into notebooks or codexes. Amongst these, the most important and interesting is the one on the Flight of Birds (conserved in Turin) and the Codex Atlanticus (twelve volumes of notebooks kept at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan). The last stop on this excursion is the characteristic Central Market where you will have the chance to taste a variety of local dishes and local products. Depending on the timing, you will have free time to continue exploring the city on your own. The total time you'll have in Florence is 3.5 hours approximately. You’ll meet back at the pre-arranged time and place to be driven to the city of Pisa, located about 60 minutes from Florence. The bus will be parked at Pietrasantina, a few minutes from the Plaza of Miracles (Piazza dei Miracoli). You'll have 1.5 hours to explore on your own this beautiful city, one of the most popular attractions is the Leaning Tower, don't forget your camera and take the iconic picture with the tower. On the same Piazza, you can also find the Cathedral and the Baptistery. The cathedral is the largest and oldest structure in Piazza dei Miracoli and is also one of the best examples of Romanesque architecture. Another site you don't want to miss is the Pisa Baptistery that stands proudly in the Plaza of Miracles, sharing the piazza with its more famous brother, the Leaning Tower; and has its own share of wonders. This marble giant is almost as tall as the ‘queen’ of the piazza, the Leaning tower. In fact, it is the largest baptistery in Italy standing at 55 meters and has a circumference of more than 100 meters. To put this into perspective it would take at least 50 people to embrace it. If you’re not up for exploring, just relax in the green meadow under the shade of one of these iconic monuments. NOTE: Entrance into the tower is not included nor will there be time due to long lines. After this experience, you will enjoy the 60-minute ride back to your La Spezia cruise port.
