Naples, easy to walk into the city.

Lots of taxis available.

Grabbed a taxi to Herculaneum for 80 Euro ( 4 of us sharing ) as we have done Pompeii many times before. Then we hired a personal guide for 50 euro, he was excellent indeed. I calculate that we saved at least 50 % on the ship excursion price to the same place.

Hop on hop off bus available just outside the port ( walking distance ), however a little steep price wise at 22 euro per person. 

After Herculaneum we had a great look around the Royal Palace, 4 Euro entry ! Bargain !

Naples

Rome, Shuttles are laid on tO get you to the port entrance as it is a long way from where the ship docks. Its a little chaotic getting a shuttle though with thousands all trying to get on.

Why oh why people insist on taking seriously expensive ships tours to Rome is beyond me. As an example, this time NCL wanted $99 US per person just to take you to Rome, no guide, no nothing. Take you and drop you and return you back. Scandalous.

Previously we have taken the train ( easy ), but this time we stuck our necks out and went with a new company, smartcruisetours.com who have a number of options, including a fast train service, a Rome on your own ( same as NCL ), or a guided bus tour.

Rome on your own involved getting a coach and being taken from Civitavecchia to Rome centre and then you doing it yourself. Remember the NCL price, $99 per person ? Smartcruisetours.com price ? 19.50 Euros !!!!!!!!!

For personal reasons we opted for the guided tour of Rome by bus, this was an absolutely fantastic trip, cost ? 29.50 Euros ! 

We boarded the bus, had a little information en route to Rome and then just outside St Peters square a Roman tour guide got on board and introduced herself. She then took us on a 2 hour walking tour of Rome, visiting the Trevi Fountain, Pantheon and Piazza Navona before we jumped back on the bus and went round some other ancient sites and onto the Coliseum where we had a 20 min stop, not really enough time and certainly not enough to get into the Coliseum itself, but of course we only had one day.

And the final excellent thing ! We once again got off the bus and the guide took us into St Peters Basilica and gave us a guided tour.

I simply cannot find a fault with this tour, the price is utterly outstanding for what we got.

Rome (Civitavecchia)

Livorno, gateway to Florence and Pisa. Absolutely no walking off from this industrial port allowed. Shuttle or taxi only.

Once again, no rip off ship tour for us. We met some fellow cruisers and got a group of 8 together and got a taxi to take us to Pisa first then Florence. 320 Euros, worked out at 40 each, bargain !

Florence (Livorno)

Cannes, in the beautiful south of France. It rained. Hard.

Cannes is a tender port, or it was for us. Tenders were frequent and easy and once on dry land you find that there is a land train conveniently placed about 200 metres from the tender area.

The little train was 10 Euro each and gave us a guided tour of the area. The film festival was on and another large cruise ship in port so the town was very full.

To be honest, we didn't like it too much, seemed to be a town with expensive shops, expensive yachts and a lot of crowds with little else.

Cannes

Marseille : NCL want $20 US per person just to get you out of the port !

No way I was thinking until I tried to haggle a taxi driver and he would not budge from 25 euros one way into town. My haggling skills have never let me down before this lol

So, regretfully we took the shuttle, even though I always prefer to put money into the pockets of local people instead of multi national cruise lines..

To be fair, this is one seriously large port. Massive in fact.

Marseille itself is a big city, lovely harbour area and another little land train which we took for a bargain 7 euro per person. This gave us an over view of the area and included a delightful stop off at Notre Dame De La Garde, a very impressive cathedral / church.

The old town was quaint too.

Marseille

Epic has a toilet, in the cabin, behind a frosted glass screen.Epic has a shower in your cabin with frosted glass.

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