Celebrity Equinox - Italian & French Riviera from Rome to Barcelona

Where this cruise calls, day by day

8 ports and 2 sea days over 9 Nights.

1. Day 1

   Rome (Civitavecchia)

   ItalyDepart
   Rome (Civitavecchia) port guide: where ships dock and what to do ashore
2. Day 2

   Naples

   ItalyPort
   Naples port guide: where ships dock and what to do ashore

3. Day 3 · At sea

4. Day 4

   Portofino

   ItalyPort

   Portofino is one deep-green cove with about 400 residents and a row of ochre houses around a piazzetta, and it is tiny - a large ship's worth of passengers noticeably fills it. An hour covers the harbour front. The rest of a good day here is spent climbing to Castello Brown or taking a boat further round the headland, away from the crowd you arrived with.

   • Castello Brown, above the harbour, for the view straight down into the cove
   • The walk out to the Punta Portofino lighthouse
   • The abbey of San Fruttuoso, reachable only by boat or on foot
   • Santa Margherita Ligure, a bigger and less precious town ten minutes away

   Getting ashore

   There is no cruise berth - ships anchor off and tender passengers into the harbour, landing at the piazzetta itself.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep (Jul-Aug the cove is saturated)

5. Day 5

   La Spezia

   ItalyPort

   La Spezia is a naval town at the head of a deep gulf, and ships call because the Cinque Terre villages start about fifteen minutes up the coastal railway. The town is workmanlike - a good market street, a naval museum - so the day belongs to the train. Trail passes and village crowding are both genuine constraints in high summer.

   • Riomaggiore, Manarola, Vernazza and Monterosso on the Cinque Terre Express train
   • Portovenere and the island of Palmaria, reached by boat across the gulf
   • The Museo Tecnico Navale beside the naval arsenal
   • The Via del Prione market street and the covered market at Piazza Cavour

   Getting ashore

   Ships dock at Molo Garibaldi with a shuttle into town; La Spezia Centrale station is where you pick up the Cinque Terre trains.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep (Jul-Aug the villages are genuinely overloaded)

6. Day 6

   La Spezia

   ItalyPort

   La Spezia is a naval town at the head of a deep gulf, and ships call because the Cinque Terre villages start about fifteen minutes up the coastal railway. The town is workmanlike - a good market street, a naval museum - so the day belongs to the train. Trail passes and village crowding are both genuine constraints in high summer.

   • Riomaggiore, Manarola, Vernazza and Monterosso on the Cinque Terre Express train
   • Portovenere and the island of Palmaria, reached by boat across the gulf
   • The Museo Tecnico Navale beside the naval arsenal
   • The Via del Prione market street and the covered market at Piazza Cavour

   Getting ashore

   Ships dock at Molo Garibaldi with a shuttle into town; La Spezia Centrale station is where you pick up the Cinque Terre trains.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep (Jul-Aug the villages are genuinely overloaded)

7. Day 7

   Villefranche (Nice)

   FrancePort

   Villefranche-sur-Mer sits in a deep sheltered bay just east of Nice, and it exists on cruise itineraries mainly as the anchorage for the Cote d'Azur. The village itself is a steep stack of ochre houses with a 14th-century covered lane, the Rue Obscure, but nearly everyone leaves. Nice, Monaco and Eze are all short hops along the coast, and the local train from the station above the harbour makes doing it independently realistic.

   • Nice's Promenade des Anglais, Cours Saleya market and Vieux Nice
   • Monaco and Monte-Carlo, about 30 minutes by train
   • The hilltop village of Eze and its exotic garden
   • The Chagall and Matisse museums in the Cimiez district of Nice

   Getting ashore

   This is a tender port - ships anchor in the bay and tenders land at the quay in the village, with the railway station a steep 10-minute climb away.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct (Jul-Aug is heavily crowded along the coast)

8. Day 8

   Marseille

   FrancePort

   France's oldest city and its largest port, founded by Greek traders around 600 BC and still visibly a working, unpolished place. The Vieux-Port is the centre of gravity, with the Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica on the hill above and the limestone inlets of the Calanques to the south. Marseille also serves as the gateway to Provence, with Aix-en-Provence about 40 minutes inland.

   • Notre-Dame de la Garde and the panorama over the harbour and islands
   • MuCEM and the Fort Saint-Jean footbridges at the harbour mouth
   • Le Panier, the hillside old quarter behind the Vieux-Port
   • A boat trip into the Calanques or a coach to Aix-en-Provence

   Getting ashore

   The cruise terminals sit in the commercial port several kilometres north of the centre, so a shuttle bus to the Joliette or Vieux-Port area is effectively compulsory.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct (the mistral can blow cold and hard in spring)

9. Day 9 · At sea

10. Day 10

    Barcelona

    SpainArrive
    Barcelona port guide: where ships dock and what to do ashore