20th Annivarsary trip to Europe! Our one-week cruise will leave barcelona and tour the western part of Italy--stops in Villefranche, Livorno, Civitavecchia, Naples and Malta.--(1) Should I go to Nice and Eze and can I get a driver or should I go on the Cruise tour? (2) Can I get a driver from Livorno to Florence or should I again take the expensive shore excursion? (3)From Naples, can I get myseld to Sorrento and Pompeii and Capri or should I tour with the ship?

I have cruised down the coast of Italy from Genoa to the Med then north to Hamburg over 16 days, and I have visited the musts on your list. I am telling you, if you want to get to the sites and back to the ship in time for sailing, you will take the ship side trips and not try to broker them yourself. Just be selective. Not all the side tours are worth it but many are way more than worth it.<BR><BR>I can assure you that if you don't speak the local languages, and know precisely where you are going and the timing to and from those places (Florence is huge for heavens sake and your hired driver may not know his or her way around the place and parking is at a premium. More than that how do you know where to go, do you have admission tickets to the several sites the ship tour will take you to etc.) Naples, on the other hand, is on the opposite side of the Bay from the Amalfi Coast, Sorrento, Capri, Pompeii. Even a reasonably competent driver familiar with the area would have a tough time taking in everything the tour will give you. I seriously doubt you can actually do any of these things for less than the ship tour by the time you figure everything out.<BR><BR>A word of advice for the Naples end of the trip. If you have a choice of Capri or Sorrento, Amalfi, Pompeii (as we did) forget Capri and go for the Sorrento and the Amalfi coast, followed by Pompeii. That was the best day tour I ever did off ship.<BR><BR>Lanny

I agree with Lanny. I have done three cruises through that area and have always used the ship's tours. In Naples we did an all day trip to Pompeii, Sorrento and then took the jet boat over to Capri. A full day but we got to see a lot. <BR><BR>Ditto Livorno, take the offered tour into Florence. You'll see a lot and you'll have a good guide who speaks excellent English. At Cvitavecchia we took the tour of Rome and again thought it was excellent.<BR><BR>I doubt the prices would be a lot cheaper if you hired out on your own and you do run the risk of missing the boat. Not a good thing as Martha might say.<BR><BR>Enjoy....

marianne<BR><BR>One more tidbit..<BR><BR>When you sail past the volcanic island of Stromboli, between Sicily and Naples, check out the volcano. <BR><BR>The first time we sailed past it was in the daytime and it was beautiful to see. However we didn't see or couldn't see any volcanic activity. <BR><BR>On another cruise through the area we sailed past at night and the view was incredible. You could see the lava spewing from the top and it erupted numerous times as we made our transit. Very beautiful. <BR><BR>When we first walked out on the balcony we could barely make out the silouette of the island. ( It's a perfect cone shaped island ). As soon as the first eruption occurred all these small flashes of light went off in the air above the volcano. <BR><BR>I thought, what the heck is that. It happened every time it spewed out lava. What was happening was helicopters and planes apparently fly people out there at night and when it erupted they would take pictures with a flash camera.<BR><BR> Quite dramatic looking and just added to the exotic show.

Marianne<BR><BR>My family and I just took that cruise - 7/7 to 7/14 sailing. Since there were 4 of us it would have been outrageously expensive to do the Cruise tours, so we did everything on our own. As other people on this site have mentioned, it's much cheaper and you can customize tour to suit your needs. We saw Eze (train and cab, but cab only would have been cheaper as it turned out), Villefranche, Pisa (planned on train but there was a strike - shared cab with another couple), Rome (train - Sistine chapel and lunch only), Naples/Pompeii (cab to Pompeii - guided tour with another couple at Pompeii), and took a horsedrawn carriage ride around Malta. It was really pretty simple cabbing it, and we could go back to the ship when we wanted, not when the bus finally went back. One couple who took the Malta excursion complained that it was so rushed they couldn't really "see" anything. We enjoyed a much more relaxed day.