Saturday, August 30, 2025

Our flight was not until 6:35 pm to Amsterdam, and there we would connect to a flight to Venice. So our target was to get to the airport  by 3:35 to be there in plenty of time. After our last experience with the Airport Town Cars, I started by trying to book a taxi, but somehow I couldn’t connect. So Cheryl suggested Uber, and that was quite easy, and didn’t cost any more. When we got the airport for some reason there was no line at Security and we breezed through. So we ended up with a lot of time to kill before our flight boarded, which was scheduled for 5:40 pm. The flight took off pretty much as scheduled, and we were off.

Sunday, August 31, 2025

Well, things went a bit less well today, but not a disaster. Delta had us changing planes in Amsterdam, but there was not enough time to do that, so we missed our flight to Venice. We ended up getting a flight that would leave Amsterdam at 8pm. This was not ideal,  but in the grand scheme of things not all that bad. Getting to Venice was the only thing on today’s agenda, and it looks like we’ll do that. The sightseeing trips we had scheduled in Venice were all for Monday and Tuesday, and then on Wednesday we would get a coach ride to the ship because I had booked the Venice extension through NCL. I always like it when I can put the responsibility on other parties.

People who cruise a lot say you should never plan to fly in to your embarkation on the day of because connections can be missed, and the ship is leaving whether or not you are on board. Today was a good example. Because we had planned it right it was an inconvenience, but not a disaster.

In any case, we got our flight to Venice, took a cab to the hotel, and settled in for the night.

Monday, September 1, 2025

We were up at 7am, showered, and then to the included breakfast at the hotel, which was quite satisfactory. Our first tour of the day is a 40 minute walk from the hotel, but it is a walk on the island of Venice, so that is just fine. We walked down to the Piazza San Marco. To get there required crossing the Grand Canal, and to do that we took the Vaporetto, the water version of public transit. At the Piazza we met our tour group, and started in the Basilica of Saint Mark. The floor is a bit uneven because Venice is slowly sinking, and not doing so evenly. You can see the influences of Constantinople here as the Basilica is said to resemble the Hagia Sofia in what is now Istanbul. In the Museum on top, we saw some of the mosaics, and some bronze horses, that came from Constantinople when Venice briefly conquered that city. Then later when Napoleon conquered Venice a number of things like the horses north, but Venice did get horses back. But some paintings from Venice are still in the Louvre.

Then we went into the Doge’s Palace, which is next to the Basilica. The Doge was generally a very old man without too much power, as Venice was a Republic, albeit mostly run by the nobility and the big merchants. The Doge’s Palace was mostly a place where the Doge received foreign visitors, and where the nobility and merchants met to carry out the functions of the government. There was also a jail on the other side of a small canal, and you could reach it from the Doge’s Palace via the Bridge of Sighs. We walked over the bridge and saw the cells, and we could see it would be very hard to escape from there. And after that, the first tour of the day ended, and we got some refreshment in the Museum Cafe. We considered our options, and decided that walking all the way back to the hotel, and then turning around to walk back into the center of Venice would be really stupid. So we decided to scout out the meeting place for our second tour of the day, and I’m glad we did as it took us a long time to find it. Google gets very confused in Venice because it has 6 districts, and each district  tends to have the same street names. Our tour guide says the postmen are the only ones who seem to understand the system.

Our second tour was a Must See Sites of Venice, and it was essentially a walking tour with stories about the different locations. One in particular the guide enjoyed was the Street of Honest Women, and that referred to prostitutes. We walked over the Rialto Bridge, one of the few pedestrian bridges over the Grand canal. And “pedestrian” is very accurate because in the center of Venice there are no automobiles at all. It really is a city designed for walking. We ended this tour back in the Piazza San Marco, and then headed back. We checked out a restaurant the guide said was good, but it was mostly sandwiches, which didn’t work for us, so we headed for the hotel. But on the way we found a restaurant that had a promising menu, and stopped, which was very nice as we sat outside and had a nice dinner of sea bass and roasted vegetables. Then we headed back to the hotel, but made a slight detour to the local supermarket to pick up supplies, then finally got back to our room. It was a long day, and I recorded over 21,000 steps. My legs and feet were tired, but no more than was natural after so much activity. Tomorrow there is rain in the forecast, so we’ll see what happens, but today was pretty good.

Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Up at 6am, and on to Breakfast at 7. This left us time for a quick trip to the store to pick up a few essentials, and at this point it was raining. No problem, we had our raincoats which were quite sufficient, and if necessary we also had umbrellas. Then we met our guide at the hotel lobby. We walked just down the street to the canal, and got a boat ride to the Murano Glass factory we would tour. When we arrived the rain had stopped, and it proved to be the end of the rain for the day. But we kept our raincoats the rest of the day just in case.

We got a demonstration from two local masters working as a team to make a glass vase. They started there as apprentices at ages 10 and 11, so now in their forties they have 30 years of experience. Watching them work was fascinating. Then we got to look at the output from the factory in the showroom. This was also fascinating as the finished pieces were very beautiful. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures of these pieces, but believe me they were fantastic. Cheryl did pick up a couple of birds as a souvenir to take home. Then we got a water tour around the main island of Venice which brought us back to our hotel. The guide kindly showed us where to get the Vaporetto to get us to our next tour in the afternoon. Other cities have bus lines and subways, but in Venice it is the Vaporetto that does the trick. We have learned to read the map at each station to figure out which line we need to get on to get to our stop. 

After lunch and a little rest, we headed back out to our last tour of this time in Venice, Secret Venice with an included Gondola ride. We took the Vaporetto as planned, and rode it directly to our meeting place. We could have walked instead, but I would rather have memories of cruising the Grand Canal. Going right to our stop left us time to kill before the tour. But at 3pm we set out for our last tour in Venice. Some of it covered ground we had already been over, but a lot was new. We got some Venetian history, and at one point went down an otherwise nondescript alley and found the back side of a palace with a wonderful outside spiral staircase. We got warned about young girls working in teams who hang out on bridges and pickpocket unsuspecting tourists, and we have had warnings from every tour guide about pickpockets. But we did not have any problems so far on this trip. 

After the walking tour we got a half-hour gondola ride, because on a trip to Venice you really have to do it, and we enjoyed it. We were on a boat with a couple from South Africa who had been part of the group for the walking tour as well. I did a few videos on this ride to try and capture a bit of the feel. And after the walking it was nice to sit down and let someone take us around for a bit. Back by the Piazza San Marco, we got out and started walking in the general direction of our hotel with the idea that we might pass a nice restaurant with the kind of food we can eat, and we did just that. We found the Ristorante Al Vaporetto on a street we were walking on, and the menu was promising. I had the vegetable soup again (delicious), and then Cheryl had scallops, I had shrimp, and we both had grilled vegetables. It was quite satisfactory, though as often happens we failed to get across the idea that when we said no potatoes and no pasta, we really meant it. But they solved each problem reasonably well and it was a nice dinner. After that a nice stroll back to the hotel which took us through the Academia area, we was new to us. It was a very pleasant evening, and the end of two very nice days in Venice. As Cheryl put it, Venice was no longer a glamorous fantasy for us, it was a place where we had walked around.
And it had been a tiring couple of days. We only got to 16,000 steps today, but a two day total of 38,000 was a lot. Tomorrow the only thing we need to do is pack up and get to the ship, and that is probably the only thing we are going to do. A day off feels like the recipe we need right now, and we have a whole cruise and a few days in Athens ahead of us.