We had an early start – shortly after 7am, I crawled from my bed, forsaking a holiday lie in. The reason for the early start was because the ship had already arrived in the port of Livarno. However, it would be Pisa where we would have our morning out.

The coach drove us through the Tuscany countryside and small towns, on the way to Pisa. I have been to Italy in the past – some time ago, mind – so have experienced their charming, old buildings, shops and restaurants. Pisa was no different. We walked the short distance to the famous Leaning Tower. I must admit, while it was very impressive, the tower wasn’t as big as I thought it would be- just 90 meters tall – pfft!

Pisa was rammed with tourists, most of who were taking photos of the tower and surrounding churches. Lots were posing for photos in front of the tower, moving their arms into a position so it looked as if they were holding the structure. Whenever I see those photos on the likes of Twitter and Facebook, I cringe. We later met a P&O representative, who told us to pose for a photo doing the whole lifting the tower thing. We obliged and will probably end up buying the photograph when it goes on sale. How hypocritical!

The only downside of Pisa was the street sellers. They were everywhere, trying to get you to buy all sorts of crap, from necklaces to sunglasses and dodgy watches. They wouldn’t leave you alone, no matter how many times you turned them down. Our response turned from “No, thank you”, at the start of the tour, to muttering many a four letter word, at the end of the morning. Stupidly on our part, we managed to get caught out by a seller – something we promised ourselves we wouldn’t. A man handed Claire and I a bracelet and small elephant each. He claimed these were free and would bring us good luck. The gifts don’t appear to be very lucky, as he then started to ask for more money. First of all a coin, followed by ten Euros. He claimed this was for Africa. I refused to allow Claire to give him ten Euros – we were basically getting mugged, but legally. We handed over a five Euro coin, before escaping and not making any further contact with him or his dodgy mates.

We then took a land train back to the coach. This was similar to the one we rode in Monaco, yesterday. The train went very fast, and we were all bumped around a lot. This was a much better excursion than yesterday, despite the incident with the street seller. We are now back in our cabin, have enjoyed some room service (which really was free) and will now enjoy an afternoon on our balcony, soaking up the sun.

[Photos from the day]