Tim Bloomfield

Thanks all & looks promising for independent travel.

If you are allocating 4 days to the pre-cruise stay why not both. Some years ago we spent 2 days in Bologna and loved it - great food and a very buzzy place as it is a university city. Then we took a taxi to the station and travelled first class by train to Venice. Prebook on the Trenitalia website [you can opt for English] and about 1.5 hours I think on a high speed train [ Frediorossa or similar] and it takes you right into Venice at Stazione Venezia Santa Lucia. The you can take a vaporetto to wherever you are staying. Why not stay on Guidecca island which looks across to the main island and is only a few minutes by vaporetto, and is much quieter to stay on. A great time to visit the main island is in the evening, when you can visit the main sites without huge crowds. If there during the day just wander off the main places up the side streets.

Many thanks again.

Thank you for that reply. I would prefer to get to Venice for onward travel on the water, but it seems that we will have to use the coach from Viking, which is nowhere near as attractive. We didn't receive the email you got from Viking about Venice access.

We are on the cruise from Rome Oct 7 ending in Athens on 21 Oct and stopping with Venice as one of the stops. However I believe we will actually dock in Fusina. I would like to visit other places such as Padua and Ravenna by train from Venice, as we have been to the latter several times before. I have used Italian trains before and they are excellent. So can anyone give me a definitive answer/s as to how we can access Venice. I have seen posts before which suggested you could only do that on a organised excursion. Another suggested you could take a Viking tender but would have to return at an early afternoon one as after that they were only for Viking excursion guests. Can we make our own way to Venice? Any answers, particularly from anyone who has docked with Viking at Fusina would be hugely appreciated

I must say we are huge fans of Viking and enjoy their excursions. However this is the only one we wish we had never taken. I recall the train journey, on a old none air conditioned train, took about 3 hours. It broke down on the way back so the return took about 4 hours. We didn't get that long in Berlin and felt we hadn't done it justice at all I should add this was in the middle of an heatwave which was clearly a big factor If I was in Warnemunde again I would go for one of the old & nearby Hanseatic places like Rostock.