Getting to Florence

The port of Livorno for most people is a gateway to either Florence or Pisa.  Knowing us, you would assume we did all three cities, but this time, we were intent on spending as much time as possible in Florence.

In the weeks leading to the trip, we poured over train schedules to see if it was possible to take a train to Florence rather than buying a shore excursion from the ship, and we finally came to the conclusion that it was possible. We bought our train tickets in advance so that we wouldn't be confused once at the station. However, having our train tickets proved to be a mixed blessing.

When we debarked the ship, we found many taxis and buses lined up, including a bus going to the train station and hopped on, but after receiving mixed messages, we learned that we would be charged for the bus ride plus train ticket.

This actually was a decent deal for roundtrip at 26 Euros each, but we already had our train tickets and didn't want to spend that much for a bus ride. In retrospect, we perhaps should have stayed on this bus and requested a refund for our pre-purchased tickets, which I believe would have only incurred a 15% penalty beyond the shipping and handling charges we paid to order them in advance.


I was confident I could secure a taxi to the station for much less than the bus ride, but I was wrong.

The taxis were in queue, and the cab driver who was up essentially refused to take us to the station. He would only do a driving tour, because obviously he wanted to maximize his income for the day.

Again, this could have been a good option, with the private tour not terribly expensive by comparison to the shore excursions, but it wasn't what we wanted.

Standing in the drizzling rain under a dark, early-morning sky, I was not in my happy place.

When I asked the taxi driver which direction to walk to town, he said, “No walk. Too far. Taxi or bus.” When I said then I needed a taxi, he turned away, muttering something in Italian.

Finally, we headed back over to the buses, and found one going to the central bus station downtown for something like six Euro each.

To me, this was much worse than a tender port, where at least they don't charge you for getting to shore. There should be a courtesy bus for those of us cheapskates who want to explore Florence on our own.

We took the bus to the bus station, and from there we had to figure out which bus would take us to the train station. Fortunately, there were a lot of cruise passengers doing the same, and we ended up following the right group. Upon arriving at the train station, we were about a half hour early for our scheduled train, so I had cappuccino while we waited. If we had taken the bus/train combination, we would have been on an earlier train, and when you're on vacation, time is better than money.

Being prepared ended up costing more overall and having less convenient arrange-ments.

For most people, the ship's shore excursions are the way to go, especially for a port like Livorno where the main attractions are far away.

Some people probably just went to Livorno, but it just seemed like a generic big city to me as we took the crowded bus through traffic to and from the train station.


The train ride to Florence transported us from the graffiti-marked station through some lovely Tuscan countryside, and long before we arrived at our destination, we were relaxed and having fun. The featured photos are fabulous Florence.