The prospect of taking a cruise had always stirred a deep and contentious conflict within me. On one hand, I want to see the world. All of it. But I am crippled by time and I would love to be able to magically leapfrog each day to a new and exotic place every day when I am on vacation. A cruise can afford just that: an opportunity to unpack one time and then use the ship as a floating hotel and restaurant; a mobile jumping off point where you awake refreshed and ready to see a different world every morning. The notion of knocking out six or seven fantastic destinations in one week—and to be able to totally chill in between the sites—that’s a concept right up my alley. In this regard, a cruise spoke to my traveler’s heart.
But then there is the other side. I disdain crowds. I loathe the herd. The idea of being cramped for a week into a massive claustrophobic hull of nauseating food, corny entertainment and obnoxious families with gaggles of kids gives me the willies. In my opinion, this element of cruising more resembles the seventh ring of hell than a dream vacation.
After recently lamenting the punishing cost of traveling to Europe with the dollar so weak, a fellow travel-freak friend suggested that my wife and I consider a cruise around the Mediterranean— Italy, the Greek Islands, and the Dalmatian coast. Our interest was piqued. My travel agent recommended an Italian cruise line, Costa Cruises. Known as a good middle-of-the-road cruise line, Costa seemed a nice blend of value and style and one of their seven-night cruises starting and ending in Venice boasted a dream-like itinerary of adventure, beauty and serenity. Toss in that you are paying dollars versus hyper-inflated Euros for the two most expensive elements of a European vacation (hotel and food) and I was ready to come aboard!
A direct flight into Venice (thank you, Delta, for adding that route this summer), followed by a glorious day and a half absorbing the city’s canals and then we boarded the Costa Victoria. This 14-story, 75,000-ton floating city features 13 restaurants, 20 bars, 2 pools, 4 Jacuzzis, a casino, a gym, a spa—you get the idea. During the boarding process, I began to get a little twitchy around my fellow cattle (moo!) being boarded but the process moved smoothly and soon we were in our cozy little room and on our way. We floated out of the harbor and said arrivederci to the Piazza San Marco, the Doge’s Palace, and the Grand Canal and watched the sun gently disappear below the horizon on the Adriatic. I fell asleep that night to the sounds of the ocean from our balcony and the gentle rocking of the ship. Could it be I was becoming a cruise fan?
And so the adventure began. Each morning the sun would rise on a new land and we would wake up magically hundreds of nautical miles from the last port of call. Over the next week, we covered hundreds of miles, six destinations (four of which were Unesco World Heritage sites), in three countries on three different seas. We toured the Sassi of Matera, a village of troglodyte limestone caves which had once functioned as a fascinating community in southern Italy; we walked the ruins Olympia, birthplace of the original Olympic games thousands of years ago; we inhaled the mythical beauty of Santorini, the Greek Island of precipice-hugging white-washed stucco homes with blue doors and blue-domed churches; we toasted the glorious sunset on Mykonos, the glitziest Greek Island; we scaled the 400 foot acropolis at Lindos on the island of Rhodes, swam in its cool Aegean waters and wandered through the Medieval streets of Old Rhodes; and we marveled at the beauty of Dubrovnik, Croatia, a walled fortress of a city on the Adriatic. All this—quite comfortably and well fed I might add—in one week.
As we sailed back to Venice on our last night on the ship, we watched the last sunset of the trip from the bow of the ship (yes, we mimicked the “King of the World” scene in Titanic) and pondered what had been an amazing stretch of soul-stirring beauty. It was quite a rich banquet of travel. There were, naturally, some warts: the ship’s pool was overrun with children and nutty Italians, the ship’s “entertainment” was a sad pastiche of parlor trick comedians and summer camp quality talent shows and there were a number of dishes served that made me want to hurl myself over our balcony. But we were able to quickly figure out how to avoid the elements of cruising we did not like and absorb the elements we did.
If you abhor crowds but crave seeing the world, do the research and find a cruise that fits your tastes—chances are there is one out there that is just right for you.
The Details
- Delta now features and brand new non-stop directly to Venice. 10 hours and you are there. www.delta.com
- From the Venice airport, you can take a water taxi (90 Euro) or take a bus into the city and then most likely schlep your bags to your hotel or then take a public water bus. If you arrive from outside Venice by train, you will arrive on the island and then will have to determine whether walking or floating is your best bet to get to your hotel. In any case, you will have some work to do—with the absence of motor vehicles on the island, there is no such thing as door-to-door service in Venice.
- Hotel in Venice: the Boscolo Bellini (200Euro/night in season). Great location right on the Grand Canal and next to the train station and vaporetti stop. http://www.boscolohotels.com/landing_pages/en/hotel-bellini.htm?&adwgoo=bellinien
- The Cruise: Costa Cruise line www.costacruises.com. Overall excellent but set your expectations correctly on the food. It can be feast or famine.
