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| Water Taxi from Marco Polo - On our way to Venice Copyright Andy Richards 2017 - All Rights Reserved |
WE DIDN'T cruise at all in 2016 or in early 2017. But in September, we returned to to cruising and to the Mediterranean. And Paul and Linda were joining us again! There were just too many things we missed last time. And we wanted them to experience Celebrity, which by then had become our favorite cruise line.
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| Celebrity Reflection - Valletta, Malta Copyright Andy Richards 2017 - All Rights Reserved |
SO WHEN a Mediterranean Cruise on our favorite Celebrity Ship - The Celebrity Reflection - showed up with an itinerary that fit the criteria of coverage of almost all of what we wanted to see in more depth, we jumped on it. This one would start in Civitavecchia (the nearest seaport to Rome). I said "almost" above, because the itinerary was missing perhaps our #1 venue: Venice, Italy!
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| Venice, Italy Copyright Andy Richards - All Rights Reserved |
NO MATTER. We just added our own leg to the trip, flying into Venice's Marco Polo Airport and staying in a vrbo property on the island for 3 nights, before taking the train to Civitavecchia the day before our cruise. I am glad we did that. We have some wonderful memories of those days in Venice. Today that is really the only way you are going to see Venice. Since 2021, Venice no longer allows mainline cruise ships to enter or dock in the lagoon.
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| Sicily, Italy Copyright Andy Richards |
VENICE NO longer allows large cruise ships in the main lagoon and all but the smallest ships must now make their port stops in either Ravenna (70 miles south) or across the Adriatic Sea to Trieste (60 miles). Neither are really very convenient to Venice, just another one of those disingenous instances where the ship says the port is "X" - "for Venice." Not really.
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| Mykonos, Greece Copyright Andy Richards 2017 - All Rights Reserved |
MY OWN slant on Venice, though, is that it is really not a place you can see in a day's port stop. In 2013, our first trip there, we arrived 3 days before our boarding day. We made use of every minute of that time. Since then we have never been there without planning at least 3 full days before or after any other leg of a trip (in our case, cruises all three times).
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| Celebrity Reflection - Rhodes, Greece Copyright Andy Richards 2017 - All Rights Reserved |
FROM CIVITAVECCHIA, our ship stopped at nine pretty amazing Mediterranean ports (mostly what I would deam "bucket-list" stops): Sicily, Malta, Mykonos, Rhodes, Santorini, Athens, Naples and then back to Civitavecchia ("for Rome").
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| Celebrity Reflection - Santorini, Greece Copyright Andy Richards 2017 - All Rights Reserved |
OF THOSE stops, we had never been to Santorini (and it was high on my list) Malta, or Rhodes. Paul and Linda had been to Athens and Rome with us (in 2015). We were excited for this one. My wife - the consummate travel planner - did a splendid job of setting us up with hotels, tours, and transportation.
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| Athens, Greece Copyright Andy Richards 2017 - All Rights Reserved |
WHILE WE have had great guide experiences around the world over the years, I think we may have had some of our best and most memorable on this trip. Follow us here, for the next few weeks on our adventures in the Med.
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| Amalfi, Italy Copyright Andy Richards - All Rights Reserved |
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