Piazza Europa

Today we where docked in La Spezia, Italy 🇮🇹.
As we had the wine tasting and hot air balloon excursion booked for the afternoon, I just had a walk in the town and visited the Cathedral of Christ, which is a very modern building with a very modern interior on the lines of the Liverpool Catholic cathedral.
Not very interesting, but nice enough.
The town itself although quite run down in appearance, did have some very ornate architecture.
In the afternoon as I said we had the excursion booked, this was free to all pinnacle members, and $99 to anyone else.
It was a trip to a vineyard in Tuscony, about an hour and a half away from La Spezia, a place called Cenaia.
We were supposed to have a wine tasting then watch some hot air balloons go up.
We where sat outside in the vineyard, it was a beautiful rustic setting, just how you would imagine an Italian vineyard to be. We were just having the third wine, when we heard the first clap of thunder then the lightning 🌩, then the heavens opened, not rain, but hailstones the size of frozen peas.
Needless to say everyone piled inside for shelter.
The storm then turned into torrential rain and the thunder and lightning 🌩 got worse, at one point knocking out all the lighting in the building.
After about 30 minutes it showed no signs of letting up so some people asked to be taken back to the ship, as there was no chance of the balloons going up in that weather.
So Michael Bailey the CEO arranged for a bus to come back early and those that wanted went back to the ship 🛳, myself Maz and Sue included.
Having said all that, it was still a very enjoyable day, and was worth doing.
Oh yes and the people who had paid for the trip where promised refunds on their tickets, so no problems there then.
We did learn some interesting stuff on the coach to the vineyard, such as the seeing the mountains where they cut the world famous Carrara marble, this is the pure white marble that was used on most of the statues by Michaelangelo and the like.
Until the guide told us, I just thought that it was snow 🌨 on the mountains.Read more