Shore Excursions from Tuscany Cruise Ports

Eight Hours in Port.
Make Them Count.

Your driver is at the port exit. Your ship departs on time. Everything in between is yours.

When your cruise ship docks at Livorno or La Spezia, the clock starts. You have a window — usually eight to ten hours — before you need to be back on board. What happens in that window depends entirely on how you spend it.

The organised shore excursion options at the port are convenient. They are also, almost without exception, shared buses with forty other passengers, rigid itineraries with fixed stops and a guide holding an umbrella. You see the highlights. You do not see Tuscany. You spend twenty minutes at the Leaning Tower, fifteen at the Piazza del Campo, and an hour on a coach between them.

A private shore excursion works differently. Your driver is waiting at the port exit — not at a distant meeting point, not on a shuttle to a bus park — at the exit, with your name. From that moment, the day is yours. The destination is what you agreed in advance: Florence, with its museums and streets and the possibility of a long lunch away from the tourist circuits. Lucca and Pisa, two cities most cruise passengers never see together in a single day because the bus only goes to one. Cinque Terre, the five villages along the Ligurian cliffs, reached directly from La Spezia in under thirty minutes. Portofino and the Italian Riviera, Santa Margherita, the harbour towns that define the coast north of Genoa.

We have been running private shore excursions from Livorno and La Spezia since 2004. In that time, we have never missed a ship's departure. Not once. We build buffer time into every excursion. Your driver monitors the return schedule throughout the day. When it is time to go back, you go back — relaxed, with time to spare, not running through the port.

The excursions below are our most popular routes from each port. Each has a full itinerary, what is included and a guide to timing around your ship. If your ship is docking at a different time, or you have a specific destination in mind, send us a message and we will build the day around your schedule.