Just a quick blog from Peter and Ilze who have arrived in Venice for “one last time” It was supposed to be party time, the Biennale, the Venice Street Orienteering Race a real knees up and “Roll out the barrel”. We arrived at the Palazzo Lezze in Cannaregio  at 12.30pm today after a largely uneventful […]

Our final Sea day is a chance to rest up and take it easy before our last four ports of call.  Last night we spent Sailaway up in our favourite outdoor position; a high midships deck, which lets you see the views from both sides. We watched fascinated as the captain reversed out of Salerno, […]

Overnight we sailed along the Italian coast, pulling in early to Salerno. It was yet another sparkling blue day on the Med. We planned to head to Amalfi by ferry, then walk to the smaller villages of Ravello, Tortello and Minori. Having already been to Carbonara, we quickly dubbed them Ravioli, Tortellini, and Marinara! The […]

Port days are tiring.  We’ve done four in a row. We’ve been to Rome before, so we declared today a rest day.  Civitavecchia, or Civ as the locals call it, is Rome’s port. As such it is pretty big, and the terminal is not unlike an airport departure lounge.  The town has nothing in particular […]

Livorno is the port for Tuscan towns like Pisa, Lucca and Florence. However we decided to avoid the tourist hordes and explore the port itself. It made for a more relaxed pace.  We stepped straight onto a waiting shuttle bus (much more efficient than Marseille) and were soon at the tourist office.  Strangely our ship […]

Time to throw preconceptions out the window. I expected to like Genoa more than Marseille. Such was not the case. It was something of a frustrating day.  It should have been easy, as the cruise dock is very close to the city, and the main railway station is only a few minutes’ walk away.  I […]

The are two reasons why you should take your wife out to dinner in a posh Venetian restaurant just past the Ponte Sosspiro in San Marco. Firstly, late in the evening when you walk home and the tourists have all gone, the storm has abated and the view and the sights are beyond description. So […]

Any Venetian who rose early this morning was treated (used advisedly) to the sight of Pete scurrying around the canals and calles of Carnaregio in his pyjamas. Woken early and out the front looking for that hardest of Venetian things to discover (four bars on your phone), I found another glory of Venice. A crisp […]

FROM 0 DEGREES WITH WIND CHILL FACTOR to……. Wednesday dawned, our last full day in Venice. It’s very cold; 3 degrees overnight, and overcast with an expected top of 5 degrees. Where are the warm beanies, scarves, windproof coats and gloves? The wind blowing across the Laguna is wickedly cold, (wind chill factor is serious) […]