Twenty Four Days by Land and Sea in Europe - Port Call: Corfu, Greece

Our next stop after Kotor was our first stop in Greece -- Corfu.  Corfu is located in the Ionian islands and just about as far north as you can go in Greece.  When you look at the island on a map, about half the island is north of the Greece/Albania border.  

We docked at Corfu city and we headed off on foot to see the "New Fortress" and old town Corfu which is a World Heritage site.  The walk up the hill to the New Fortress was pretty easy -- finding the entrance though was a bit challenging.  We walked into 

Zucchini Flowers on sale at the Corfu Fresh Food Market adjacent to the New Fortress

the market and were impressed with the variety and quality of the seafood and vegetables.  We were even more impressed by the proprietor at the Popular by Christoforos, a small coffee bar/restaurant in the market place -- he noticed us looking around like we might be lost and asked if he could help.  He pointed us to the cleverly hidden -- and completely unmarked -- entrance to the New Fortress.  Really appreciate locals who take the time to help folks that are visiting their town.

Once we got into the fort, we were happy we'd made the climb - the view of the harbor and surrounding area was beautiful.

View from the New Fortress

Looking up at the New Fortress

As you can tell from the pictures, we were once again blessed with amazing weather -- a trend that had started on the first day of our road trip, and would continue throughout our cruise.

From the New Fortress, we headed down the hill for Old Town Corfu.

Lots of shopping 

Walk down the hill from the New Fortress 

Our Lunch Restaurant - Mike really liked his Seafood platter

Old Town Corfu was charming -- lots of shopping and restaurants, cobblestone streets, and colorful buildings.  We bought a couple of Greek style shirts (15 Euros each) and some soap made with Greek olive oil.  We were fascinated by the cars we watched traversing the narrow streets, made narrower still by cars parked on both sides of the street.  It seemed there was some kind of informal agreement that cars coming from the right hand side of the intersection would back up to allow cars entering on the left to pass through the intersection.  After watching this for 15 minutes, we were glad we weren't driving through Old Town.  We ate our first lunch in Greece at a pretty decent restaurant (pictured above) before walking back to our ship along the waterfront which took about 25 minutes or so.  All in all a very nice stop -- and I feel the three hours or so that we spent walking, shopping, and eating lunch was the perfect amount of time for our Corfu visit.

Twenty Four Days by Land and Sea in Europe - Port Call: Kotor, Montenegro

We were greeted with Chamber of Commerce weather for our first visit to Montenegro.

Getting there aboard Vision of the Seas was just amazing...  Look at the map below and you can see the maneuvering we had to do to get from the Adriatic to Kotor all the way over on the right -- including that narrow passage where we turned right on our final approach to Kotor.  

The next 5 pictures were taken along the route into Kotor - great sailing by our Capitan and crew.

Starting the run in...

Making our first big turn...

At the narrowest part of our passage...

Made the turn, heading to our anchorage...

What a backdrop - looks like it could be in Alaska... We tendered in from our anchorage

Welcome to Kotor

The town is completely charming - Cobblestone streets, small churches, and sidewalk cafes.

And if you want some serious exercise, you can climb the hill in the background

This is the south entrance of the old town's castle

Map of the town, castle, and fortifications on the hill above the old town

It is quite a hike...

Kotor is famous for its cats

Our port call in Kotor was half a day - plenty of time to wait for the tender lines to slow down, go ashore, walk from one end of the old town to the other, do some shopping, stop in a cafe for a local beer, and still get back to the ship with plenty of time before we left.  It was an easy walk from the tender load/unload point to the old town -- no need for maps or guided tours if the old town is your ultimate objective.  If you are feeling spry and full of energy, climbing the hill behind the town which takes more than an hour up and 40 minutes or so back down is a great way to burn off some of that energy.  I expect the view from up top, particularly on a clear, warm, and sunny day like the one we enjoyed, would be a pretty awesome reward for your effort.

We left Kotor when the sun was hiding behind the mountains surrounding the city and sailed back to the Adriatic - rewarded this time by the lights of the small towns along the way reflected in the water as we glided past - a perfect first port call aboard "Vision of the Seas".

Twenty Four Days in Europe by Land and Sea - Embarkation Day in Venice on Vision of the Seas

Embarkation in Venice - just has a nice kind of ring to it...  After 5 days of running around Italy on the land, time to take to the sea on Royal Caribbean "Vision of the Seas".

Mike and Liz are big time RCCL cruisers so we were really looking forward to them showing us the ropes on our first RCCL cruise.

We arrived at our dock right after 11:30am -- very uncrowded curbside and unlike Fort Lauderdale or Miami - you pull your own bags from the taxi to the security screening point - its a short pull - 20 yards or so.

Embarkation check-in was quick and easy - helps to travel with Diamond level friends :) and even though this was our first RCCL cruise, our status on sister cruise line, Celebrity, was acknowledged as "Platinum"  on our cruise cards.  We walked directly on board after check-in and immediately bought our 7-night wine package for dinner - 7 bottle package - in "Vision's" beautiful central Atrium - have to get your priorities in order after all.  

The Florida 4-some is already sporting a fab tan...

Pulling our into Giudecca Canal  

Cruising past the waterfront we'd walked the previous day

Rush Hour

Saint Mark's from the water

Toasting Departure

Close up of St Marks

As you can tell from our pictures -- and that we were taking them from the rail (and not over someone's head), finding a port side (ship's left side) rail on one of the top decks is a must for your departure from Venice.  Since we'd boarded early at 11:30 and able to get into our rooms by 1:30, we headed upstairs about 30 minutes before our scheduled 4:30pm departure (we actually left at 5:30 due to ship traffic) having already unpacked our bags, explored the entire ship, and changed our table in the main dining room - thank you Maitre'D Jose Martin from Portugal!  Our original table was right in the middle of the dining room and a little pinched room-wise -- never one to settle for "good enough" when "perfect" may be available -- we ended up in the only four-person window table in the entire dining room -- created specifically for us before dinner each night.  RCCL really stepped up - Bravo!

One note we hadn't thought about with respect to fixed dining times and cruiser demand.  Having done January and April cruises in the Caribbean this year, we found that "Early Fixed Dining" is the most popular time; in Europe with a greater proportion of Europeans aboard, "Late Fixed Dining" is the most popular time.

Waterfront dining each night

We met our waiter - Ante - from Croatia and his assistant Nadya - from Russia - when we were seated at our table.  Ante and Nadya were a perfect team and made us look forward to dinner with them each night.  Once they figured out we liked wine and bread -- we had nice big wine glasses and a fresh basket of bread waiting on our table each night.  Little touches like these make you feel special and truly add to your travel experience.  Our food in the main dining room was varied and very well executed - we left each evening after our 2+ hour dining experience laughing and happily full. 

With a sea day following our departure from Venice, we were able to get into the swing of our cruise, explore the incredible artwork in the stairwells aboard Vision of the Seas, and come to appreciate the cruiser friendly layout of the ship.  We also remarked on the great location of our rooms Deck 2 - 2572 and 2574 - Starboard side, midship.  Two floors up to the the main dining room, three to the Central Atrium show room, and away from the typical ship noises (anchors, thrusters, and main engines) you hear during docking or anchoring if your cabin is too far forward or aft.  

This was also our first "Ocean View" (vice Balcony or Mini-suite) cabin in 10+ years -- after spending our first day and night aboard we looked at each other and remarked, "Spending half as much on our cabin than we usually do means we can cruise twice as often for the same price..."  We loved our cabin - it was everything we needed -- and what we didn't have, our cabin attendant took care of, perfectly, each and every day (we didn't have a fridge so he filled up three ice buckets for us twice a day to keep a bottle of white wine and two bottles of water chilled).  Also have to note that we had a nice bottle of Moet Chandon Champagne waiting for us when we got to our cabin -- courtesy of American Express Cruise Privileges Program (which we also found out included a free 1 hour massage in the spa).

As it turned out, we needed our sea day to store up energy for the next 5 days  - a different port each day - Kotor, Montenegro;  Corfu, Piraeus, Mykanos, and Agrostoli in Greece - then another sea day to recover before arriving back in Venice.  Our next posts will focus on our port calls....

Twenty Four Days by Land and Sea in Europe - Renting and Returning Rental Cars in Venice

As noted earlier, we drove from place to place in Italy, utilizing rental cars we'd reserved through Auto Europe.  I was very pleased with Auto Europe's pre-departure coordination through their service desk and our cars were ready and waiting at Fiumicino airport and Venice Mestre Railway station as promised.  The cars were exactly as advertised and were sized to fit 4 adults and their bags.  I did not intend to pick up our car leaving Venice at the Mestre Railway station but it was what my reservations said.  As they say, you learn more from your mistakes so this was a learning experience.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I dropped off our first rental car in Venice at the central rental location adjacent to Piazzale Roma, about 1/3 mile or so from the cruise ship docks.  This was a great drop off point, but if I had paid more attention, dropping it off at the Mestre Railway station would have been better since we were staying in Mestre.  Ditto for our pickup at the end of our cruise, it would have been better to pick up the car at the Piazzale Roma location rather than the Mestre Railway station.  In either case though, both of these locations would be preferable to picking up/dropping off at the Venice airport which is farther away and more complicated to get to via public transportation.

Hertz Map - but other companies are in all three places

These are the addresses from the map

So with perfect hindsight, here are our recommendations:

1) If returning a car on day of the cruise embarkation, drop it off at Piazzale Roma.

2) If you are picking up a car on the day of cruise debarkation, pick it up in Piazzale Roma.

3) If you are staying in Mestre pre-cruise (which we did) drop it off at the Mestre Railway station (Stazione Ferroviaria Mestre above).

4) If you are staying in the Venice area for a couple of days post cruise and then flying out of Venice, pick it up at Piazzale Roma and drop it off at the Venice Airport (Aeroport Marco Polo).

Twenty Four Days in Europe by Land and Sea - Walking the Streets of Venice

Glorious, warm weather for our day's walk in Venice.  After a short bus (10 minutes) and tram (15 minutes) from Hotel Villa Barbarich, we got off in Venice at Piazzale Roma.

Our first picture in Venice

As suggested by our hotel's front desk, we headed in the direction of Punta della Dogana since this has a wonderful view of the Grand and the Giudecca Canals.  Many of the reviews in Italian really highlight this location.
Punta della Dogana Reviews

Map is centered on Punta della Dogana - Perfect view of Grand and Giudecca Canals

Walking Tour of Venice

This was a perfect sightseeing walk

The route outlined above is a great route since it allows you to keep the water on your right hand side as you walk from Piazzale Roma to the Giudecca Canal -- this keeps you from getting lost in the hard to navigate alleys and streets that are Venice.  Walking Map Link

We tried for about 20 minutes -- by map and GPS -- to navigate the interior streets of Venice to get from Piazzale Roma to Punta della Dogana.  Didn't work too well -- the map was confusing because street or Piazza names were hard to find; GPS was an issue because the narrow alleys ended up blocking the GPS signals which meant the GPS was essentially useless.  The last challenge has to do with canals - say you are gifted with an internal compass and can keep heading the right direction no matter what - whoops - but the bridges that allow you to get from one side to the other are frequently not on your route of travel or you hit a dead end.  When we finally stopped and asked directions, some kind Venetians in a bakery (Thank you!) pointed out the "Follow the water" directions and then took us to where we could find the water to keep us on course.

In addition to helping us find our way, by the time we hit the Port Authority designated on the map, we were watching the traffic on the Giudecca Canal in beautiful sunshine which is a show all by itself.  After walking about halfway along down the route outlined above -- about where the distance and time of our walk box is, we stopped for a beer and an ice cream - take a look at this delight...

This is an ice cream

Local Brew

When we reached the Punta della Dogana, we were rewarded with a truly beautiful view of Venice -- the entrance to the Grand Canal, St. Marks Church, and even a cruise ship sailing into port amidst the myriad of water taxis, small boats, gondolas, and kayaks crossing to and fro, back and forth across the canals.

Two views from the Punta della Dogana

Having reached our first objective  and with our second objective - St Mark's - in sight - we set off on the second leg of our walk - Oh, wait, let's eat lunch.  So a spaghetti vongole or two later at a small restaurant just past the Guggenheim Museum, we crossed over the bridge at Ponte dell Accademia.  Once we were on the other side, we began to notice small signs - mostly about 10 or 12' above street level - pointing the way to St Marks.  These signs kept us on track for the remainder of our day -- first to get us to St Marks; then to get us back to Piazzale Roma from St. Marks.  It was hard to find the signs - sometimes they were hand painted and only 3-4' off the street level and once, we had to look at each wall in a four way alley intersection to find the sign -- it was behind us -- but these signs got us directly back, via a beautifully scenic route, to Piazzale Roma.  We actually walked a bit farther than depicted and were properly tired when we got back on our Red Tram to head back to Mestre.  But as we watched sunset and moonrise back at Hotel Villa Barbarich to review our day, felt we had done a really good job of seeing the best of Venice.

Panoramic of St Marks - got there at 4pm to avoid the crowds

Depicting Venezia in one Picture

Twenty Four Days by Land and Sea - Stopping for Lunch... Occhiobello

We have been so fortunate weather-wise on our trip.  Every day we have stopped somewhere, the weather has been beautiful so having a bit of rain, thunder, and lightning between Greve in Chianti and Venezia (Venice) wasn't going to rain on our parade.  How many days do you get to drive past Siena, Florence (Firenze) and Bologna on the way to Venice?

Not a bad 3 hour drive

The drive from Tuscany included lots of tunnels through lots of mountains.  You know you've been in a long tunnel when your GPS, having lost its satellite signal for several minutes starts telling you to turn left in the approaching traffic circle?

Just about an hour out of Venice, halfway between Bologna and Venice, the lunch bells in our car rang so we started looking for a town where we could find a restaurant for lunch.  One of the wonderful things about Italy is you can always find a good restaurant regardless of where you are.  We had just crossed the River Po when we saw a clock tower indicating we were approaching a town of decent size -- the next exit said, "Occhiobello" so we pulled off the Autostrada (freeway or more accurately toll road) and started nosing around the town looking for a likely restaurant.  It took about five minutes before we saw a little brown sign indicating a restaurant.  We made a turn or two and ended up on the east bank of the river Po looking at a pretty full parking lot with a bridge leading to two houseboats floating on the river -- Il Mulino Sul Po.  Il Mulino sul Po

Don't be put off by the low Trip Advisor rating  -- their overall rating is pulled down by Italian ratings - Italians have much higher expectations than Americans or other Europeans (there are only 4 non-Italian reviews and the Non-Italian ones average out pretty high)

Restaurant entrance on the river Po

When we entered, we were wondering...  But as soon as we entered the main dining area and saw all the Italian guys with plates piled high with Mussels, Calamari rings and the like, we knew we would be just fine.  Our waiter who spoke passable English explained the 7 courses which we could back up by looking at the wall that laid out each course and the 24 Euro price.  After switching out the three bottles of wine on our table -- one sparkling and two white - for three bottles of red wine, we started eating and laughing - all the time looking at panties, various currencies, business cards, and graffiti on the walls and ceiling - clearly a place to let your hair down so to speak.

After starting with our buffet appetizers, we didn't stop eating, drinking and laughing for two hours.  Makes you wonder how much work gets done in the afternoons around here.  Fortunately, we only had another hour's drive to Venice.  After gorging at lunch, we ended up having pizza for dinner - we were still stuffed 4 hours later.  Our lunch experience was so typical of the reason why we like to travel - you never know what you're going to find around the corner or in the next small town.