We have finally gotten to our final cruise stop – Venice.  Since the ship was staying overnight before we were departing the next day, it gave us some time to explore this fantastic city.  We took a slow stroll over to the Rialto Bridge and took several pictures while on it and below it.  It is truly a remarkable structure.  We headed over to St Mark’s Square and considered going into the basilica but decided we would wait and do it next year with the group that will be sailing with us.  St Mark’s Basilica looked very nice since it was under restoration last time we had seen it.  We also checked out the “Bridge of Sighs” which is the bridge between the courtrooms and the prisons where the prisoners would sigh as they took one last look at the outside world before being locked away. We decided to look for an off the beaten path restaurant for a little food and happened by a very nice place where we had a great pizza and carafe of wine.  We then took a long winding walk back to the ship going through some areas we had never been before.  This was probably our first trip to Venice where we didn’t take a Vaporetto (water bus) to go to different places.  We did everything by walking.

The next morning we got up early and departed the ship for the last time, carrying our suit cases to the train station.  We took the people mover they have by the port which makes the trip a lot easier when you have luggage.  The biggest issue in getting to the train station is to get over the large pedestrian bridge that only has steps and no ramp.  There are porters trying to get you to use their services for 5 Euros a bag but we elected to do it ourselves.  We went to the train station and stopped for coffee and Danish before boarding our train ride to Milan. When we arrived in Milan our hotel was only a short walk from the station.
​
After we got situated in the hotel we met our niece back at the train station to spend some time with her.  She was staying in Milan for a few weeks as a college student shadowing doctors in one of the local hospitals.  We had decided several months ago that it would be fun to spend a little time with her while she was in Milan.  She took us by the Milan Cathedral which was very impressive and sits on the large Piazza del Duomo.  We walked around the fashion malls (Galleria Vittorio Emanuele) and they were very nice.  Milan is considered one of the fashion centers of the world.  We walked down to an impressive castle called the Castello Sforzesco where the Dukes of Milan once lived and ruled.  After having a gelato we decided to take the Metro over to a nearby neighborhood known for its bars and restaurants.  All of these establishments were along a river that ran through the neighborhood and people just sat outside and watched everybody walk by.  After some walking we decided to get a little food at one of the restaurants during “happy hour”.  Happy hour in Milan is different than the US since the reduced price is actually for a buffet meal and one drink.  If you drink more than the one drink the cost of the second is much more expensive.  The meal we had was actually pretty good and allowed us to try a few different things.  We then took the metro back to the train station and helped our niece buy her train ticket to Venice where she was going to meet her parents a few days after we left. We said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel.

The next day we had arranged a tour to Lake Como from a tour supplier called City Tours.  It turned out to be an awesome tour.  We first went into Switzerland to Lugano.  This was a nice little town on a very peaceful lake.  We sampled some of the Swiss chocolate in the stores and it was great.  After our free time was over in this city we headed back into Italy and took a ferry to Bellagio which is on Lake Como.  Bellagio is undoubtedly the most famous town on Lake Como. It is absolutely beautiful with its panoramic views and flower-lined streets.  It is also one of the most expensive towns to visit/stay at.  We stopped at Bellagio for about 3 hours to admire the views, shops and lunch before we took a ferry for a 2 hour ride viewing the other 15 towns and the stunning view of the Alps.   Our tour guides talked to us about the history of Lake Como and where many of the famous people lived.  It was sort of like a Hollywood tour but many of the homes being shown to us were of people we were not familiar with although everyone was anxious to take several pictures of George Clooney’s estate as well as the home that many shots of the recent Star Wars movie was filmed from.  We finished our boat ride in Como and boarded the bus to go back to Milan.  We were very impressed with both Lake Como and the area around Lugano.  Both of these areas are some place we wouldn’t mind going back to although Milan will never be a place that holds much excitement for us as tourists.  Milan is an interesting city where 3 million people live although there are only 1 million permanent residents.  Many people that come to Milan commute there for work and only go there during the week days.  It is a hub of fashion and manufacturing.

Our long trip is finally over!  After 78 days and 21 countries we are back in the US!  There is nothing like living in the US and you never know how lucky you are until you see some of the other countries in the world.  We probably won’t be sending out any more blogs until our safari which we start in early August.  This is another trip we are excited to take.  Later this year, in October, we will be heading to the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu.  More fun times coming – stay tuned!

Sharon & Greg

We are making our final cruise segment before getting to Venice.  We stopped at Kotor (Montenegro) where we had never been and found this to be a beautiful port.  The cruise ship views on the way in and out of the port are not to be missed.  Unfortunately, we could not dock at this port and had to take a tender to shore.  We were fortunate to get a priority tender due to our frequent cruising status and were off on the second tender.  When we arrived, we decided to see what else was being offered and decided to take a taxi tour to some of the nearby sights.  We had a private two and a half hour tour for just ourselves in a large van for only 70 euros.  We first went to a small town along the water called Perast.  This was a nice quiet town but not too much too see there except for the beautiful views.  From this small town we took a small water taxi out to a tiny island where the Abbey of St. George which we took photos from the boat.  There was another tiny island about a few hundred feet away that had a 15th century church called Our Lady of the Rock where we spent about 10 minutes taking some pictures there before heading back in the water taxi.  Interestingly, this was a church for the sailors and the island was created by scuttled ships.  Our water taxi then took us to an overlook high on a hilltop to see the city of Kotor.  What a beautiful view.  From there we went down to the old city to spend our last few hours before going back on the ship.  We decided we were a little hungry and thirsty so we found a small pizza restaurant in one of the town squares.  We had a delicious pizza along with some beer and cider for a very reasonable price.  The old city was very nice and we could have spent some more time just walking around.  If we would have had another 2 hours we would have walked the walls around the city which go up very high and provide some excellent views of the city.  Next time we will be sure to do this. 

Our next stop was Dubrovnik (Croatia) where we had our Distinctive Voyage excursion set up.  This was another cruise where we were hosting a group of 47 passengers in this program.  It was our third Distinctive Voyage cruise out of the five cruises we were taking on this long trip.  We split up into two separate buses to make smaller groups.  The first stop was the Old Town which is about a 15-20 minute drive from the port.  Dubrovnik is a little bigger than some of the other ports we had been visiting and this “Old Town” was not walkable from the port.  We had a nice visit to the Old Town and learned a lot about the history of the city.  The most fascinating part of the history of this city was very recent, back in 1991, when Croatia was attacked by Serbia and Montenegro.  The guides were very young at the time but both remembered the war very well and all the people who died during that timeframe.  There are still some buildings you can see where the roofs have been destroyed during the bombings.  It seemed strange to see such recent destruction from a time only 25 years ago during our life time.  For anyone familiar with Game of Thrones, the Old Town of Dubrovnik was “King’s Landing” from the Games of Thrones.  They shut down certain areas of the town when they are filming the show.  After our visit in the Old Town we went on to the small town of Civtat.  This was a nice quiet tourist town which had an old church on top of a hill.  We saw a water polo practice area in the ocean there and learned that this sport was extremely popular in this country.  They had won gold and silver medals in the most recent Olympics in water polo.  Our final stop on this tour was out in the countryside where we had an opportunity to see some old mills.  We were given a demonstration on the mill operations and how the mills used the small river in the valley to provide power.  One mill made flour and we were shown how the old stone wheels ground the wheat into flour.  The other mill had wooden hammers powered by the water to pound wool clothing to soften it and make it wearable.  They showed us the old wool rain coats made by this process and they weighed about 15-20 pounds because of the thick material used.  At one time this city’s main business was agriculture with crops grown in all of the surrounding valleys.  Now the city has reverted to tourism and most of the farms have closed down because those businesses were not nearly as profitable as the tourism business.  Now fresh produce is not readily available and the local market runs out of vegetables and fruit around 10 AM every morning.  When we got back to the port we took a short walk outside to see what was around and saw some very interesting small cruise ships in the port that only have around 15 or 20 very small cabins.  These cruise ships do 7 night cruises around the islands in the Adriatic Sea for around $1000-2000 per person.  It might be a nice thing to try sometime.  The water there is crystal clear and very clean.

Our last stop before Venice was Split, Croatia.  Once again we had never been there and were pleasantly surprised on what the city had to offer.  The palace area and historical city are very close to the port and in easy walking distance.  There were a large numbers of vendors set up in tents all around the area.  The market place was extremely colorful with different types of flowers and fresh fruits.  The Diocletian Palace was built in the 4th century by the Romans and contains the Cathedral of St. Domnius which is the most prominent visual building in Split.  The historic city which lies just outside the palace contains many stores for shopping and restaurants.  It is all very picturesque.  We started walking back to the ship but decided to check out one of the beaches near the port.  The beach was only about a 10-15 minute walk from the ship but it was tucked away in a very nice area.  It wasn’t your typical sandy beach but most of the areas to sunbathe were areas with a concrete surface.  There was some sand in a small portion of the beach but it wasn’t your real fine sand of a nice beach.  It was very crowded though with the nice warm temperatures. 
​
Our last stop of the cruise will be Venice where we will go on to Milan for a couple of days to visit our niece and take a trip to Lake Como before flying back to Peachtree City.  

​Sharon & Greg