squeaker

Among others, my cruise ship will have short stops in Naples, 7a-7p; Messina 7a-5p; and Livorno 8a-8p. I'm not much for the formal tours. Any suggestions on what to do for the few hours in these ports without having to rush thru the day?

ira

Hi S,

In Livorno, take a cab to Livorno Centrale train station.

From there train to Florence (1:22 hr) or Pisa (0:15).

I don't think that you have time to do both.

ira

For Naples,

See the Archaeological Museum, the Capella Sansevero, wander around Spaccanapoli.

See my trip report for details:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34451044

Myer

Someone I know went on a cruise last autumn and didn't want to spend the money for the organized bus trips from the ports to the nearest major site.

I got her train schedules, site availability times and wrote out a walking itinerary for the day for Barcelona (starting point 1 1/2 days), Florence (from Livorno), Rome and Seville.

It appears she had a great time.

Obviously she made some compromises.

She went to the Vatican museum (Rome) and made an advance reservation for the Accademia museum (David in Florence). Other than that she didn't go to any museums. But she really did see the cities and got a good flavor of what they're about.

cmt

From Messina, the most obvious choice is to go to Taormina, which is very beautiful, butyou have to expect it to be very crowded with visitors doing the same thing you'll be doing. If you want to go to a more unusual interesting place that's closer, you can go to Tindari (very good and pretty extensive Greco-Roman ruins, beautiful seascape views, shrine with "black madonna," etc.)