Venice After Our Star Princess Cruise

When John Lazzatti and I reached Venice at the end of our Star Princess cruise, the ship sailed majestically up the lagoon past San Marco Square, and was the biggest structure in Venice while it was there. It docked south of the city, and we went back and forth to San Marco on a shuttle vaporetto. We spent the first night in Venice aboard the ship.

For our fist afternoon in Venice while still being housed aboard ship, we quickly found our hotel and headed for Harry's Bar. We had two martinis each served in very small glasses. We tried one straight up and one on the rocks. There's a small bar and a sprinkling of tables in a not very large room. I bought a copy of Arrigo Cipriani's book called "Harry's Bar, The Life and Times of the Legendary Venice Landmark." The book was nineteen Euros and the four drinks were sixty-nine Euros, total $132.00. A later visit with one drink each cost us 56 Euros or $84.

For five nights we stayed at the Best Western Albergo San Marco for 583 Euros (about $874 each). We had separate rooms. The hotel was a few steps away from San Marco Square. In contrast to the breakfast in Rome, the breakfast provided was very basic-no hot food and a very limited amount of other offerings which were undistinguished.

We ate lunches and dinners in small places which were very reasonable. Often the restaurants called themselves pizzerias, but had a full menu of Italian food. House white wine was uniformly good, the breads were delicious, and at lunch we often had tasty pizzas. We never sought out or needed expensive restaurants and were always satisfied by the places we found just roaming around the streets. Most of the help were non-Italians with a number of Bangladeshi in some places.

We wandered alone in various sections of the city, starting around ten and then rejoined each other for lunch at two. Often we'd get lost, but that was the fun of it, getting lost in the maze and labyrinth that is Venice, and making all sorts of serendipitous discoveries: a new church, a beautiful campo, a fish market near the Rialto Bridge, or a coffee shop with tempting pastry. John L. discovered the Coin department store near the Rialto and found some good buys.

We were in Venice from November 8, 2007 to November 14, 2007, and we had, at times, very cold weather, bone-chilling and penetrating dampness at night, but the city made you forget the cold with its beauty and uniqueness. Late October and early November are good times to go because you avoid the huge high season hordes. One piece of advice to the city fathers: stop selling pigeon food in the Piazza San Marco and cut down on those thousands of pigeons. They fly into people, leave droppings, shed feathers, and are a nuisance.

Venice is a magical city of dreams, unreal and ethereal. We'll remember scenes at night along the canals, the Bridge of Sighs, the Bacino, gondolas, the Rialto Bridge, reflections of the sinking houses on the canals, the Grand Canal, colonnades, baroque churches with great art, quiet secret gardens, cloisters, the stone wells that are everywhere, the lion symbols, and the Doge's Palace. We toured the Doge's Palace and actually crossed the Bridge of Sighs and saw the prison cells. Two glorious churches among a hundred are Santi Giovanni e Paolo and La Basilica della Salute (the dome presently covered in scaffolding).

Venice is a drowning city, but its glories live in your memory forever: the library in the San Marco Piazza, the marble statuary, the palazzos, the campos, Carnevale items in stores with scary costumes and masks, magical sunsets, the shimmering city where life is more unique than in any other city in the world. People started sipping espressos at the Caffè Florian in 1720.

We went to the Lido by vaporetto and strolled along the beach in front of the hotel where von Aschenbach pined over the Polish boy of fourteen in Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice."

A bookstore Libreria "Acqua Alta" with used books spread out over two large rooms advertises itself as the most beautiful bookstore in the world. In addition to all the shelves, in one room is a full size gondola loaded with books and in the other room another large boat replete with books.

One day I visited the Vivaldi museum, crossed the Accademia Bridge and went to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. It is housed on the Grand Canal in an unfinished palazzo which is a work of art in itself. In the beautiful sculpture garden Peggy Guggenheim is buried alongside fourteen of her beloved dogs; their stone gives their names and dates. The museum boasts several Jackson Pollock canvases so I bought a tie there with a Pollock motif on it.

An interesting art gallery near her museum is the Bac Art Studio where you may be greeted by the owner's Jack Russell who insists that you toss a ball for him to fetch. You'll get worn out before he does. I stupidly asked the owner if the dog spoke English, and the owner replied that he understood English but didn't speak it. "I don't think dogs in America speak English either," he quipped.

In Venice we discovered the Inishark Irish pub where we met British and Irish tourists. It gave us something to do in the evening since we didn't want to attend operas at La Fenice or string quartets at various venues.

Many years before I had arrived and left Venice by train which is a fairly easy maneuver since vaporetti stop at the railroad station. This time we had arrived in the city by ship, and we were to leave by plane. We wondered how were going to manage this with our heavy bags. On the morning of our departure we ordered a water taxi. A bellman pulled our two big bags behind him and led us across San Marco Square to a water taxi pier right outside of the Hotel Baglioni.

A water taxi docked and our bags were loaded aboard. We sat in a comfortable cabin that could easily hold twenty persons. The boat was a mahogany-like speedboat resembling an old Chris Craft. We zipped up one canal, then another and came out on a big waterway behind Venice. It took us a half hour with the throttle wide open to reach a dock outside the airline terminal. The trip was 100 Euros and we tipped the boatman an additional twenty, for a total of $180.

At the boat landing a sign said that you could wait for the shuttle bus or take a seven minute walk to the terminal entrance under a covered walkway. We walked pulling our wheeled bags behind us. We had seen Rome, enjoyed a cruise on the Star Princess, and feasted on the visual delights of Venice. Now it was time to head home by way of JFK. Ciao, Venezia.

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Star Princess Cruise From Rome to Venice - Part II

Lazzatti As John and I continued our Star Princess cruise, we found ourselves on the sixth day docked in Kusadasi, Turkey, the gateway to the ancient Roman city of Ephesus. It was an impressive sight walking downhill through the ruins of the famous two-story library facade. In Ephesus, a sign on the floor near the library still points to a brothel. Ephesus many years ago was a port on the sea, but now it is several miles from the water.

The leader said that in theAmphitheater of 24,000 Paul has his speech to the Ephesians. Concerts are still held in the theater. Outside the ruins proclaim a tout, "Genuine fake watches. Take a look."

We visited the great Basilica of St. John the Baptist ruin, and the Virgin Mary, a small stone house high in the mountains, where she spent her last days. It has recently been consecrated by Pope Benedict.

We had lunch in the courtyard of a railway museum, where the old steam engines and other forty-fiveCars are on display. An ethnic dance show was presented during our meal.
Seventh day we were set on the Greek island of Mykonos, a very beautiful resort destination, which were due to the presence of Onassis, the playground of the jet. Mykonos was under a drought. Just before we got there, they had three days rain. The island was once again green. An interesting sight as we stood in front of a whitewashed chapel, saw a large flock of sheep from a boat trip ona pier. They were brought from a nearby island back to graze on a green back Mykonos.

Many windows were locked house with blue shutters, because the season was over. Mykonos Blue is a particular shade of blue that much of the whitewashed buildings. The island has many private chapels. They were once a tax dodge, because if you built a chapel on your property, you could build a house and escape taxes. "Little Venice" is a charming section, where the houses overhang theSea. The legend says that the pirates put their plunder there to sell it for the islanders.

The word means, Mykonos piled stones. Compared Mykonos Delos, the birthplace of Apollo, famous for its perfect light. In the central part of the city three great white pelicans have the run of the city. It can be a very windy island out of season.

On day eight we landed at Piraeus, the port of Athens. A light rain fell occasionally as we walked around the Acropolis. On this trip, the Acropolis wasdisappointing, huge cranes were placed there, and many of the old pieces were moved to the foot of the hill, only to be housed in a new archaeological museum.

I was disappointed by the large area below the Acropolis, known as the Plaka. Years ago I remember going down stairs at the side of the Acropolis hill, which was part of the Plaka. Along the terrace steps were restaurants, taverns and shops. The Plaka today, all these ingredients inAbundance, but I could not find the long staircase busy with bars and cafes, which was such a joy in the old days. Interestingly, we found a taverna in the Plaka today, the good food and wine served. They showed us the sights from the 2004 Olympic Games.

On the day our ship bound Nine in Katakolon, which is the starting place for Olympia, Greece where the ancient Olympic Games were held. Olympia proved to be the most impressive and interesting of all the archaeological sites, wevisited. Our guide pointed out how close the fires in the summer of 2007 led to the destruction of the page to come.

According to legend, Zeus's father tries to Cronus to devour him, but his mother saved him, and he was five shepherds, who worked as a nanny and has brought him. Set up as a reward for them, Zeus on the games as a way of pacifying the warring Greek city states. For the period of the Games, at least there was peace.

Olympia also had the best museum of our journey, one thatcorrelated with the site. How do you take this country tours, you will learn the history and training in architecture, art and culture. You should note that the capital cities to the tops of the columns that are divided into categories: the simplest and oldest Doric, Ionic have roles, and the Corinthian, which have ornate acanthus leaves
Many tourists kept asking instead on the Greek island of the musical "Mamma Mia". It turned out that a fictitious island. Time for a walk through assignedThe little village of Katakolon, some shutters, because we were there, out-of-season.

Tenth day was spent on the Greek island of Corfu. It has a promenade and park, a cricket pitch and a busy shopping area that contains one from Marks and Spencer. In the old area in the middle of the narrow streets, we were brought into the Church of Agios Spyridon, where the Saint Spyridon, the patron saint of the island, to be held as before. He has no more to Corfu. His remains were brought fromConstantinople. His mortal remains in an upright position throughout the city are carried out four times a year.

Day Eleven we saw in Dubrovnik, Croatia. We do not have a guided tour at this stop, but took a shuttle bus from the ship and went over the ditch in the walled city was still with the scars of the Bosnian / Croatian / Serbian wars of 1991/92. We went up on the battlements, through the streets and had an excellent lunch on the quay in front of one of the ports. We do not seeMaritime Museum, because the landlady would not accept dollars or euros, and insisted on the local currency, which we lacked. I can not guarantee the accuracy of the information given to me by tour guides, because they have a tendency to embellish and entertain rather than educate their charges.

Day Twelve: We spent a night on the boat docked in Venice. It was a night of packing and saying goodbye to new friends.

Day Thirteen of our disembarkation in Venice, we hadup at 6:30 and out of the room by 8:00. We were off the ship by 9:30 and on a Vaporetto shuttle boat to St Marks Square. We checked into our hotel near the space for our five nights in the city of dreams. We paid $ 32 for our luggage delivered to our hotel and down $ 15 for a shuttle boat back and forth to the ship for the day before. On board, I bought 150 minutes of computer time for $ 75.00 and read e-mails and check on Amazon and Google sites to send.

It was sadYou leave our new friends and the luxurious accommodations of the ship. We remembered the very elaborate made Jack o 'Lantern pumpkin for Halloween display in the Atrium on the ship and the serenity of the toga night. On a cruise ship, we knew it would be wise not to try to get your money worth eating, I do not think that we are grown on every pound.

As our vaporetto moved away from the dock for the management of St. Mark's, we watched as the Star Princess, the largest and tallest buildingVenice was smaller, and we realized that our floating home was no more. We were on our own again. Well, we were in Venice, and it was always Harry's Bar, to rejuvenate ourselves with the delicious martinis too.

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