Virgin Voyages - Italy and French Riviera 2026

Today we are near Rome, about an hour and a half from the city at the port city, Civitavecchia. Since we have already visited Rome, we decided on a relaxed day on ship with a three hour spa visit.

The spa includes cold plunge, hot tubs, a mudroom, a salt room, hot wet and dry saunas, and warming stones for quiet relaxation. I am really looking forward to it.

After breakfast, we enjoyed a short walk around the ship and discovered it was completely empty, which felt wonderful.

Ok. Monaco is money. I could people watch all day. Not only is it beautiful but every other car is a Bentley or Rolls. We walked around the Royal Casino entrance (it wasn’t open yet when we went in) and we walked around the “new casino”. I just love wondering what people do for all this luxury. They aren’t on a bus tour from a cruise, that is for sure.

This is the insane Yacht - the Kismet. Owned by a billionaire. He owns some sports teams and the Four Seasons Toronto. Home connection!

Today is our day in Nice and I was really looking forward to it because we had a tour to Monte Carlo in Monaco.

My god. It’s so nice here. I’ll start with Nice. Right away I thought it would be such a cute place to get a villa and enjoy the Med. The houses lining the cliffs are beautiful and the drive and views were stunning. The first thing we saw coming in via tender was an insane yacht. I thought ooh, this is a rich place. Then we went to Monaco.

Cookie and chocolate chip walnut banana bread is where it’s at.

France! But said like a pageant girl.

We took a city tour on a Hop on Hop off bus which gave us a great tour of the city. We had been here many years ago but we did a tour to the country so I never got a real taste of Marseille. What a cute ocean city with some cute little beaches and lovely clear water!

We did a tour of the city which took about an hour. We didn’t hop off until we were almost back where we started. It was time to find a croissant and their local Navettes de Marseille. They are more of a biscuit which I found to be too dry with an orange flower taste. Now that I’m reviewing my notes they are for dipping into coffee or tea… neither we had. So maybe I’ll try again one day. She gave us a sample… I opted for a piece of olive oil cake instead.

Why did I take that croissant at breakfast on board? I’m in France.

Wrapping up the day at the Mexican place, Pink Agave.

We weren’t hungry until we were hungry and ordered all these dishes but our mains that we didn’t photograph. My steak did not photo well in the dimly lit restaurant.

Resident drag queen… the one on the right if you weren’t sure.

We enjoy the back of the ship. Big loungers and small appy’s. You just raise the little flag on the standee and a server will magically show up.

We got these drinks for free. Wrong order and the sweet server offered them to us.