Hvar Town as seen from the Fortress.
We are cruising the Dalmatian Coast on the Azamara Quest and docked in our first Croatian port of Hvar at around 11AM. First order of business was to tender into town to venture out on a tour of Island Highlights. This coast is incredibly beautiful with deep blue sea, bright blue sky, a light sea-breeze and layers of history. Today we toured the medieval Hvar Town and Stari Grad (formerly Pharos), stopping at a Dominican Monastery to see some archaeological antiquities from the Roman era. Our guide was excellent at filling us in on the complex history of Croatia and it’s tenure with the ancient Greeks, Romans and Venetians, just to name a few who once ruled this land that was most recently part of Yugoslavia. Our daughter was particularly alarmed to hear about the large number of wild boar and snakes inhabiting this island.
The bay in Hvar is lovely and we saw an unusual number of extremely large mega-yachts.
In town, we walked through the square with its church and bell tower, as well as one of the earliest public theaters, built not long after Shakespeare’s theater in London.
The day was extremely warm, and as we traveled into the interior, it got even warmer. We visited a typical Konoba (Taverna) in the village of Vrisnik for a tasty typical snack of cheese, smoked ham, bread, olive oil and wine. The white wine was not bad.
Once back in Hvar we toured the storybook fortress overlooking the city, and marveled at the commanding views of the town and bay. The complex also houses a prison with a long, slick, claustrophobic staircase and dungeon-style cells hidden far below.
Then back to the ship: hot, tired and heads crammed with new lessons about history, geography and culture.
We boarded the ship yesterday in Venice and experienced an amazing scenic sail-away on our way out of port. For the second night in a row we managed to consume about eight desserts at dinner; we don’t order, they just bring them – this has got to stop . . . .
Charming Venice.
This morning we decided to explore a little more of Venice before we join our cruise later today on the Azamara Quest. Needless to say, we got turned around and didn’t follow our planned route – but, nevertheless, saw more of the charming, intriguing back streets and canals of this great city.
After deciding to do the Daniel Silva/Gabriel Allon ‘tour’ and see some Tintorettos, we did manage to get by the Church of Saint Roch (San Rocco) and see a few of his (that is Tintoretto) many huge canvases from the 1500s.
Then back to the hotel to catch-up with the rest of the family and get ready to go to our ship. We had arranged a water taxi to get us there, and he quickly got us to the port but he couldn’t find our ship. There were a number of large ships in port, including the Voyager, Brilliance of the Seas and NCL. We zipped around all the ships and eventually found the Quest (right where we’d told our ‘skipper’).
Once on board, we had lunch, explored the ship, unpacked and got ready for our ‘sailaway’ event (which was terrific). The ship sailed out of Venice around the majority of the island along with an educational commentary explaining the sights along the way. We had a wonderful dinner and saw some good entertainment before calling it a night.
On the Grand Canal.
This morning my husband took off by bus for the airport to meet our daughter’s flight. With the change in her schedule she was going to arrive three hours later than originally planned; but we found out this morning the plane had an incredible tailwind and she would be about an hour earlier than planned. So he moved fast, and got there just in time to see her come through arrivals wearing her easy-to-spot UF Gator hoody, which she immediately removed in 85 degree weather.
Mom and I took off on a water taxi for Murano to see the Signoretti factory. Even though we’d both been to Venice a couple of times, we had never visited the famous island of glass-makers. It was a beautiful ride over and we enjoyed the experience. After some contemplation, I decided not to buy the $25K glass turtle I so admired . . .
We were dropped off in Cannaregio, and decided to walk towards Rialto. We had all managed to communicate and decided to meet in that area for a late lunch. Once we were able to locate each other in spite of the incredibly large crowd (there were 4 cruise ships in port), we had a nice time catching up over pizza and pasta at a café on the Riva Del Vin along the Grand Canal. After taking the vaporetto (water bus) back, we rested and caught up with some necessary work back home.
But here in Venice, the water is sparkling, the air has cooled and when the sky darkens there is a large, soft-edged, golden half-moon. At sunset we took the express vaporetto north all the way to the end of the line at San Zaccaria where we walked around the Piazza San Marco, eventually having a great dinner at Trattoria al Leoncini before taking the water bus ‘home.’
Although we have all previously seen the requisite historical sites around San Marco, we did pay a visit – but I much prefer skipping the crowds and sticking to the back alleys and canals that make Venice so intriguing.
We have now traveled the entire Grand Canal waterway by boat and have enjoyed every minute.
Ciao Italia.
Today started out as a relaxing day of train travel to Venice. No rush in the morning as we had breakfast at our hotel and then left Salzburg in the rain to head south. We are all looking forward to meeting our daughter in Venice the following day.
Our train to Venice was 9 minutes late getting into Rosenheim (Germany), where we had what we thought was a 17 minute timespan to change trains. Once there, we figured out the entire schedule had changed and we had a bit longer to wait. Once en route to Venice they also canceled three stops, fortunately not ours . . . apparently this train was run by the Italians. We missed the usual German/Swiss efficiency.
The route was as beautiful, as I had anticipated. We traveled through Innsbruck; crossed the Italian border at Brenner and came through Verona. There were mountains, bright green pastures, sheep & cows grazing, Tyrolean churches, villages nestled in valleys, incredible sheer cliffs and the occasional castle in the distance. The rainy weather created some fog and beautiful cloud patterns; it also created windows streaked with dirt – not good for photos.
Incredibly, my phone was working well (even through the long tunnels), and I was surprised when it rang with a couple of calls. The biggest surprise was the automated call telling us our daughter’s USAir flight had been canceled! We had a few tense moments until we finally determined she was re-routed to Venice and would only be a little late.
Happily, we have once again outrun the rain. On arrival in Venice, we walked over the bridge from the train station to our hotel, the Hotel Carlton on the Grand Canal and settled in. I do not care for this hotel at all, the rooms are dark and have definitely seen better days; some rooms smell of smoke, staff was not very helpful. I selected it because of its proximity to the train station and transportation hub. Despite the convenient location and even attributing some of the chaos to the summer crowds and general Venice issues, I would not recommend it.
We ventured out to nearby Trattoria Marcianna, for a nice, simple pasta dinner. My husband and I went exploring afterwards – basically learning the neighborhood a bit, but more importantly scoping out the gelato options.
