Silver Shadow: 11-Night Mediterranean

Nice is the capital of the French Riviera, a Mediterranean city of about 340,000 people wedged between the Maritime Alps and the Cote d'Azur coastline. Cruise ships anchor in the bay at Villefranche-sur-Mer, a small harbor town about 6 km east of Nice, or occasionally dock at Nice's own port.

Marseille cruise port is France's busiest and one of the major stops on western Mediterranean itineraries. The city is France's second largest and its oldest, founded by Greek sailors over 2,600 years ago, and it has a rougher, more authentic edge than the polished Riviera towns further east.

Built on a narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean and the Etang de Thau lagoon, Sete is a working fishing port of about 45,000 people on the Languedoc coast. The city calls itself the Venice of Languedoc for its network of canals, though the comparison undersells what makes Sete different: this is a genuine fishing town where trawlers unload the catch at the port each morning and the restaurants cook what came in that day.

Palma de Mallorca cruise port is one of the busiest in the Mediterranean and the main cruise gateway to the Balearic Islands. Palma sits on the south coast of Mallorca, the largest of the Balearics, about 250 kilometers south of Barcelona.

Florence (Livorno) cruise port is the main Tuscan stop on Mediterranean itineraries, but it's worth being clear about what you're actually docking at. The port is Livorno, a working industrial city on the Ligurian coast, about 85 kilometers west of Florence.