Florence, Italy Florence on Your Own Anja We felt very rushed in Florence. We made the mistake of taking the "Florence on your own" tour. This is the tour in which they take you by bus into Florence, drop you off and then meet you at an assigned spot for the return bus ride. In spite of the fact we docked at 7:00 a.m. the "tour" didn't leave until 9:30 a.m. and by the time we arrived in Florence it was 10:30 a.m. We wasted over 2 hours while many of the other longer tours left shortly after docking. I guess Princess was just taking care of the higher priced tours first. We simply were not given enough time to do the city justice. We didn't make it to any of the spectacular museums because we just didn't have the time to wait in line for entrance. If we had waited in line to see Michelangelo's David in the Accademia, we would have missed other sights. If I had to do it over again, I would take the train as was highly recommended to me by others before we left. Unfortunately, I opted not to do this, because of my concern of missing the boat, so to speak. However, it is incredibly easy and many, many others took that option. I wish I had as well. But, in spite of this, Florence is also a wonderful, picturesque city. Everything is very close together and easy to see (providing you have time). Get a good map. We got a National Geographic map at Borders Books which was perfect for our needs. Incidentally, we also got the National Geographic map for Venice and Barcelona and found them to be very helpful. This is where we said goodbye to Italy. What a beautiful country. Florence and Naples are destinations in their own right and deserving of much more time than a day on a cruise. We will be back.