We ultimately picked a cruise on Norwegian Cruise Lines. We heard it was more suitable for grown-ups and overall had a good reputation. I liked the "Freestyle Cruising" concept, which meant we didn't need to dress up and no assigned eating times/tables. From the time we started looking into this, several other cruise lines suffered newsworthy problems so we hoped that the lack of issues with NCL was more than just luck. My main goal was to take a cruise to places I had never been and was unlikely to go on my own.
Our chosen intinerary, on the Norwegian Jade:
Venice, Italy - embark
Koper, Slovenia - I saw an episode of House Hunters International here and was hooked on the idea of visiting.
Split, Croatia - Croatia has been on my short list lately, due to some HHI episodes also.
Dubrovnik, Croatia
At Sea - (yikes! a whole day on the ship!)
Messina, Italy - This is on the island of Sicily
Naples, Italy - First thought: Pompeii!
Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy - disembark.
We decided to add one night in Venice and three nights in Rome for other sightseeing. On to the trip...
We had the most amazing view of the Swiss Alps at sunrise, shortly before arriving in Venice. I have never seen anything like this from a plane window.
We arrived in Venice on a Friday morning. We had pre-booked transit passes which were easy to pick up from a kiosk at the airport. It included our bus ride from the airport, which we found pretty easily and it looked like a short wait for the next bus. Well, we waited, and the bus time passed, and we waited some more. A surly driver finally arrived but wouldn't let us on; we finally ascertained the bus was on strike. Transit strikes are SO common in Italy, I would suggest never bothering to pre-book anything (including regional trains, etc).
After going back into the terminal to purchase a ticket from the other provider, we finally arrived at the Piazzale Roma. This is a central hub for busses, taxis and the vaporetto (water bus). It was also near our hotel, which we found easily since we had pre-printed directions. It is NOT easy to find your way around Venice since the street names might change from block to block. We also didn't enjoy hauling our bags over about 10 bridges, but we're DIY kind of girls so we made do. Here's a random street view:
After checking in, we went back to the Piazzale Roma to read the information about the strike. Apparently it would be over in the late afternoon, but until then some key vaporetto routes were still partially in service. We decided to go to Piazza San Marco on the partial route and walk the rest of the way.
The water bus was VERY busy, but the ride was neat. I enjoyed seeing the sights from the canal. We got off at the Rialto bridge.
The walk from there to San Marco was very well marked and conveniently took us by many shopping opportunities. The square itself was kind of boring, but the architecture was pretty in a few places. For me, it didn't live up to the hype. I loved these pink glass light fixtures.
We did stop for a drink on the piazza. I felt we must, in honor of Katherine Hepburn's character in Summertime.
We walked back and discovered the neighborhood near our hotel was very nice. We scoped out the food scene and decided on a restaurant for later. It had a very strange name, Pier Dickens, but the food was good and the waiter very charming. I totally failed at pictures! I had a pizza with arugula and some other things that I can't remember. It's hard to operate on very little sleep.
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