Part II
Aug. 17 - Bologna/Florence - Took an early train to Florence. Toured the Uffizi, Accadamie, walked around the major squares around and over the Ponte Vecchio. Took a cab to watch the sunset at Piazza Michelangelo.
Aug. 18 - Florence/Siena - Toured the Bargello, Duomo Museum, Duomo. Took a bus to Siena and toured the Duomo and walked around and hung out at the square.
Aug. 19 Siena/Lucca - Train to Lucca - This is the only part I would do over. It takes a LONG time to get from Siena to Lucca. We arrived in Lucca, walked around, had some lunch, did laudry.
Aug. 20 - Lucca/Pisa/Rome - Stopped in Pisa to see the leaning tower and other sites and then took the train to Rome (we stayed in Trastevere). After checking in at thee hotel we toured the main church, had dinner and hung out at the squre.
Aug 21 - Rome - Toured St. Peter's including the climb to the Dome. Walked around seeing some sites including the Jewish ghetto.
Aug 22 - Rome/Civitavecchia - Dropped off our luggage at St. Peter's - toured the Vatican and took a train to Civitavecchia to board our cruise that went to Messina, Athens, Mykonos, Rhodes, Sardinia, Ephesus, and Naples.
Ephesus was really amazing and I loved Sorrento (we didn't see too much of Naples). All in all this was a good itinerary, although I would have taken out Lucca - just too much time spent getting there. Places other than Venice and Siena during the day weren't too crowded. I was really suprised how uncrowded Florence was (we were told it would be horrible - it wasn't). It just may be the economies in the US and elsewhere. There seemed to be a lot of Italians touring these places. If you have any questions on places we stayed or eat let me know.
