Saturday, August 26 we left the rain and chill of Amsterdam for our long-awaited vacation: a Mediterranean cruise with ports of call in Athens, Kusadasi (Ephesus), Crete, and Corfu! So, going on a cruise meant we were actually already spending much more on a vacation than usual, so we decided to save a lot of money by not taking the excursion packages offered by the cruise line. John (who had very little pressing, urgent work to do in August while Erin faced the craziness of starting a new job) did a lot of research and planned out all the details from staying in a hotel in Venice Saturday night before the ship left to figuring out public transportation options in our ports of call. We had an absolutely wonderful, relaxing time! Erin had never before been on a cruise, but she would definitely be willing to go on one again after this experience!
Of course, the trip wasn’t all smooth sailing (ha, no pun intended). We took a discount airline to Venice, so the airport we arrived in was a 45 minute bus ride away from Venice. Treviso airport is about as big as our apartment. There are no actual gates since passengers must always take a shuttle to (and from) the terminal from the plane. Buses crowd the tiny parking lot right in front of the building, which looks like a very small warehouse; after all, only two airlines operate out of Treviso. We waited in the hot parking lot with a crowd of other people (probably because there is no place to sit inside while waiting for a ride or for your plane to depart) and finally followed a herd onto a bus that we were hoping was the right one. After hearing a lot of English-speakers all consulting maps of Venice, we decided we must be going to the right place.
There’s a reason people advised us to stay at a hotel close to the plaza where buses drop you off: there really are stairs on every single bridge in Venice…lots and lots of stairs. Fortunately we had taken the advice and booked a room only one bridge away from the plaza. This is where the first mishap occurred. After lugging our baggage up and down one too many bridges because of our poor sense of direction, we arrived at the hotel lobby. There were no reservations for us. John pulled out an e-mail that said we did indeed have reservations, but the man at the front desk could find no such thing in their computer system. He reassuringly told us that he did have a room available so we would not have to sleep out on the streets overnight. Whew. That was good to know! The room was fine, the breakfast was great, and we really spent only a minimum amount of time in the room anyway as we had less than 24 hours to enjoy Venice.
Even though we had a map and had read tons of warnings about the fact that everyone gets lost in Venice and it’s OK, we were not prepared. We found the park near our hotel, eventually wandered over to the Rialto Bridge, and found the restaurant John wanted to eat at for dinner. Getting back to the hotel at night was a long journey. Honestly, everywhere you look in Venice, people are walking around squinting at maps, trying to see what direction they are walking by looking up at the sun, staring around at street signs, or finally sitting down on a bridge arguing with partners and spouses about where they are on the blasted map! In case you ever decide to travel to Venice, leave plenty of time to get places, plan to get lost, and just enjoy the scenery wherever you are. It’s not a huge island so you can never get too far away from where you are supposed to be. We finally learned to just follow all the little signs that point to “Rialto,” “S. Marco,” or “Academia” to find our direction.
The only rain we had the whole trip was Sunday morning. We had the entire town of Venice to ourselves it seemed! We strolled over to San Marco Square to see the Basilica, Campanile, and Doge’s Palace. This is where the second mishap took place. On the advice of a fellow cruise passenger, John booked a “secret tour” of the Doge’s Palace for us on Sunday morning. He booked the time and paid for the tickets online, but only printed out one of the two e-mails he received confirming our reservations. When we got to the palace and told the woman at the desk our name, confirmation number and time of the tour, she flipped through pages for several minutes before telling us she did not have a reservation for us. Unlike the hotel, this time things did not go our way. It turns out the reservation was for Monday. Hmmm. John said he was sure he had not booked a tour for Monday since we would, by then, be in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. No, there were no more spots for the tour Sunday morning. Sorry. We ended up buying tickets to go see the palace on our own, which ended up being a good time. Erin started to wonder if we really had tickets to get on the cruise ship that afternoon. Now that would be a disaster.
When we came out of the palace, the sun was shining again and the temperatures were back up in the 70s. Although the signage at the port in Venice is deplorable, a kind passenger finally stopped to tell us where to take our bags before checking in for our cruise ship. By this time we were dripping sweat and sincerely hoping, after getting rid of all our luggage, that we had a place on the ship and that our bags would not be going to Greece and Turkey without us. We did! What a relief! A short 15 minutes later we were on board!
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