Onwards to Italy

Saturday 27th
Pre 6.00 am start, with room service breakfast as we sail into Santorini. As we visited a couple of years ago, we are just doing our own thing.  We have arranged to go ashore with Christine & Mark, so met up for our tender tickets.  The maritime union is very strong and we must use local boats (of varying size).  Once ashore we took the cable car up to the town and left Christine & Mark to check out the WiFi.  We wandered through familiar territory and beyond.  It was the beyond that found us on the "other" side of town, car rentals, car sales, machinery etc.  We did get some lovely views over the flats and the less popular seaside.

We made our way back up to town and found our "white shop" with the intention of buying another cotton shirt.  They had one, higher priced, pushy rude owner/salesman so no deal.  Just down was the cafe we used last time, so had a relaxing coffee & sandwich looking over the harbour before some more wandering.  Oh I bought another cotton shirt just down the road!

Met up with Christine & Mark for lunch, with a beautiful table overlooking the sea. Someone, not me, suggested that we walk down the hill to our tender boat. a) it was a long way b) it was hot c) donkeys/ mules/ horses have right of way.  It wasn't too bad until we got to the last couple of hundred metres and there was a herd going up, effectively trapping Vivian & Christine against the wall.  Mark & I were the trailblazers and we were OK. Don't know what happened to the ladies sense of humour ☺

Back on board ship we decided to skip the shows and at dinner found that Heather has succumbed to the "bot".  An early night seemed like a good idea.

Sunday 28th
Wasn't going to comment, but for completeness, our cellphone rang just before 3.00am with the news that Vivian's mother had died.  As such the day onboard was pretty subdued and it was lucky that it was as sea day.  However we had only infrequent cellphone coverage, so couldn't make further contact with our daughter, Fiona.  Heather is still sick and Mark was a little unsure of their plans for Venice tomorrow.

Monday 29th
We arrived in Venice about 1.30pm and soon disembarked, but there are huge distances to get out of the port and walking is the only way.  We've elected to do our own thing for our overnight stop here.  We declined the ship's water shuttle tickets (push marketing) and wandered down and bought return tickets to St Mark's at half the price.  I'd thought that we would have the good old Vaporetto, but no, for same price we had a luxury boat (they do airport transfers as well). 

Just 1 bridge to St Marks and found Doge's Palace easily, with no queue!! Had a fantastic visit and loved the history, paintings and the whole atmosphere.  The history of justice, ruling power, wealth, armoury, prison cells and of course the Bridge of Sigh's was quite overwhelming.  Afterwards we lost ourselves in the back streets - we must have got into the wrong area as all the shops were high end Gucci Versace etc.   Anyway, found a cafe/pizza place and got refreshed at a reasonable price, as opposed to the one just off St Marks, before heading back to the ship by shuttle boat again.

So now it's time for Vivian to be unwell.  She has gone straight to bed with panadols to try and sleep it off.  Later we get room service light meal and an early night yet again, the first time we've missed MDR dinner (but it was open sitting, do we aren't letting our friends down).

Tuesday 30th
Yet another glorious day in Venice and today we are heading back to "town" to the Murano Glass shop, where we bought a couple of necklaces last time. The thing is that this is on the other side of Venice, opposite the train station and just along from where we had stayed.  Still quite a walk out of the port to the People Mover - a driverless train.  Walked straight up to our shop and completed purchase in under 10 minutes. 

Decided to have a coffee along the Grand Canal before heading back to the ship.  As usual, I was striding ahead and found that I'd lost Vivian.  Turned around and she was talking to these 3 American girls.  They wanted to take a Gondola ride, but was too expensive for them, would we like to share?  What a great idea and we had a half hour ride along the Grand Canal and then more interestingly through a number of the back canals. 

The girls were from Michigan and were having a European OE before starting varsity in the Fall.  We had a great time and only €18 each - very reasonable.  One of the funnier things we saw on the Grand Canal was the Water Police using speed lasers to catch the boating speedsters.  It is also amazing how easily everything is transported around the place by waterway, particularly the narrow back alleys.

We got back to the ship with plenty of time to spare (sailing at 1.00) and Vivian has retreated back to bed, while I catch up on this blog.  A P&O ship - Oceana has just docked beside us and the Costa Classics is a bit further away - we are all related through our common ownership by Carnival Corp.  All much smaller ships than last time were here on the Royal.  It seems that the port authorities have now introduced their ban on larger ships, which currently also kept their crowds down a bit.

So it is just after 1.30 and we are now backing out before our scenic cruise out of Venice.  We've skipped lunch and will take in the sights from the balcony. Great views on our way out and then we had a late lunch at the dreaded Horizon (which was actually quite quite).  Caught up with Heather and Mark and neither are feeling the best.  However on a positive note, lovely evening as we sail towards Dubrovnik for tomorrow's excitement.