Back to the missed boat…<\/p>\n
We drove to Cinque Terre<\/a>, the "five towns" along the Italian Riviera that up make a huge tourist attraction. Cruise ships that port at Livorno<\/a>, and there are many that do, run shore excursions to Cinque Terre. Cruise passengers often take local shore excursions, or create their own.<\/p>\n Ours was a few days after leaving the other Riviera<\/a>…the one Oceania just launched. On the drive into Monterosso<\/a>, the town at the northern tip of Cinque Terre, we witnessed some of what we'd heard about — devastation from an horrific winter storm that left four people dead and roads washed out.<\/p>\n The "boat" we missed was Vernazza<\/a>, town No. 2 going south and apparently the jewel of Cinque Terre. We skipped it because we were riding the train by then, it was raining and we'd already had a full day. More than its four siblings, Vernazza needs tourists to assist the re-building process and there's even concern that it won't survive a year or two of waiting for business to return.<\/p>\n In hindsight, we wished we'd gone.<\/p>\n We missed the boat on this one, and people who write about cruising should never miss a boat… After an Oceania cruise that ended in Venice, we embarked on a nine-day driving adventure of Italy. If you've never been on a nine-day driving adventure of Italy, do it. You get lost. You make friends… Continue reading Italy's Tarnished Jewel Struggling<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":13196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,25,31,15],"tags":[154,660,939,912,72,35,22,940,941,93],"class_list":["post-13111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-deals","category-people","category-ports","category-stories","tag-carnival","tag-carnival-glory","tag-cinque-terre","tag-cruise-bargains","tag-cruise-deals","tag-cruises","tag-european-cruises","tag-italy-cruising","tag-new-england-cruises","tag-shore-excursions","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/DailyDeal-2-e1334202169354.jpg\" "\\"DailyDeal-2\\"")
<\/a>
\n\tCarnival Glory<\/a>
\n\t7 nights
\n\tSeptember 8, 2012
\n\tNew York<\/a> (return): Halifax<\/a>, Saint John<\/a>, Portland<\/a>, Boston<\/a>
\n\tInside: $529
\n\tCost per day: $75<\/strong><\/span>
\n\twww.carnival.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"