Splendour Barcelona cruise--excursions?

[suntanzi]

Hi

Looking for suggestions and advice on choosing excursions for our 10/16 trip.

Thanks!

Tanzi

[CMurph]

I don't know what all your ports of call are, but I was recently in Barcelona. It is a wonderful city to visit. One easy way around is their tour bus (I believe it is call Bus Tourista). It is one of those double decker buses with the open air top. It stops at many popular places throughout the city and you can get on & off it as much as you wish. You can start your tour at any bus stop and I know it stops at the ports. If you can, please allow yourself a full day to enjoy this great city.

[critterchick]

We were on Splendour last October, and had a wondeful time. We did Villefrance-sur-mer (sp?) on our own. The trains are very easy to navigate, just remember to bring exact change because there is no attendant at the station on Sunday & the machines weren't taking credit cards. You can get to Monaco or Nice (opposite directions) in under 20 minutes. You can then trek to the top of the hill (or take a bus, also very easy) to the Jardins Exotique (sp?), a fabulous collection of succulents & other Mediterranean plants. There is also the famous casino. We walked to the yacht harbor & had the best pizza of our trip at an unassuming, inexpensive restaurant. We also rode the train to Nice & walked around a bit. Found a nice wine bar to have a glass while waving at the ship.

At the Florence stop (actually the port of Livorno, an hour away), we did an RCL wine tasting tour - half a day, took a bus to a Tuscan winery, which was a lot of fun. Got to pet the cats, too. We had already been to Florence on that trip, and the bus ride from Livorno just didn't seem worth it. You could probably take the train to Florence or Pisa quite easily. Pisa is very easy to navigate. You can see the tower from the station, so just walk in that direction & you'll get there. A good guidebook can tell you what the guide will tell you, and won't cost you as much.

We did the Walk Through Renaissance Rome, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Again, the port is a ways out-about a 90-minute ride, but the bus was 1/2 empty so we go a few zzzs on the way. That was a whole day trip - we figured we'd be lost in Rome on our own for a single day, so that was our splurge.

We did the Pompeii tour, and it was raining. There were so many groups that you couldn't get around at all. Plus they stopped at a cameo factory & tried to get us to buy overpriced souvenirs (that's fairly typical of the tours, I think). But it's a facinating place, although the dumped stray dogs were sad. The guide told us that they are well fed by the merchants, guides & suckers like me (I fed all of my munchies to a bedraggled shepherd we named "Croissant," because she liked those best). We had planned to dump the tour bus back to the ship & go on to Sorrento by train (the station is right there, Italian rail is amazingly easy to get around), but it was such miserable weather that we went back to the ship instead.

We also did a Taste of Malta (you guessed it, a winery) tour, but I don't think Malta is on the itinerary anymore. Too bad, it was fun!

Neil and Godfrey were the bartenders in the Champagne Bar & they were great. I brought them a bottle of red wine from the Tuscan winery & got doubles for the rest of the trip. Whee!

That has been my favorite cruise so far. Thanks for bringing back the memories!

-Jean

[suntanzi]

Thanks Jean!